Not In South Dakota Any More
by Lampito
Summary: Dean & Sam Winchester are two of the best Hunters ever to work for the Federal Office of Occult Control, Eradication & Redaction (FOOCER), but when they find themselves victims of a prank it's clear these two Feds are not in South Dakota any more. Can they learn to operate like Hunters of yore, living on their wits, a good hustle, and the odd RuPaul impersonation contest?
1. Chapter 1

Well, it's been a very long time since a plot bunny came hopping along to nibble on my keyboard, but completely out of the blue this little dear popped out of a kombucha jar. No idea what a plot bunny would be doing in one of my 'booch jars - fermenting, perhaps - but then, they are strange little creatures, so who knows what goes on in the brains of these loony little leporids.

Anyway, he/she/it (or we could use wiya, the non-specific third person pronoun from Cree, first brought to my attention by Leahelisabeth and very useful it is too) hasn't told me wiya's name yet, but did shyly dictate a single chapter, so we can try the usual tactic of putting it out there and seeing if the little bunny gets more confidence. Wiya may have taken inspiration from the Denizens of the Jimiverse (where most of my stories are set) who wanted to know what else was going on during the events of the story called 'Nine to Five'.

Perhaps we shall call this story...

 **NOT IN SOUTH DAKOTA ANY MORE**

Rated T. Because this story may contain traces of Dean Winchester..

Dean and Sam Winchester are consummate professionals, two of the best Hunters ever to work for the Federal Office of Occult Control, Eradication and Redaction (aka FOOCER) – but when they appear to be victims of an elaborate prank, it's clear that these two Feds are not in South Dakota anymore. Can they learn to operate like Hunters of yore, living on their wits, a good hustle, petty graft, and the occasional RuPaul impersonation contest?

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Dean woke up with his face stuck to upholstery.

This was not a new experience for him; he often spent hours on the job outside of official work time when he and his brother were on a case. He was known to pull overnighters in his office, using the battered but comfortable sofa to snatch a couple of hours of sleep when fatigue overtook him, while he waited for a search run of the archives to finish or for another Hunter on the other side of the country (and occasionally the other side of the world) to get back to him.

His boss was constantly on his case about it, complaining about unapproved overtime and WHS issues and something called 'work-life balance' and calling him 'idjit' repeatedly, but Bobby Singer had long since resigned himself to the fact that it was just how Dean Winchester operated; he was one of the best Hunters that the Federal Office of Occult Control, Eradication and Redaction had ever seen, and it was just in Dean's nature to go above and beyond the call of duty.

The memory that he was supposed to be on a day off popped into his head, and he let out a small sigh; he'd have to sneak out of the building unobserved before Bobby got in, or he'd get another earful. With a yawn, he opened his eyes, stretching his arms as he did so.

He let out a small yip of surprise when his arms hit something solid.

The 'something solid' turned out to be the door of his car. He wasn't on his office sofa in FOOCER's South Dakota office; he was lying on the front seat of his beloved Impala, and it was dark outside.

And he could hear snoring.

He'd spent enough time sharing motel rooms with his brother to recognize the gentle _gnaaaaaaark_ coming from the back seat as Sam's. (Technically, FOOCER officers were entitled to a room each when they travelled to work a job, but the Winchesters took their work expense budgeting seriously; between Dean's talent for DIY and improvising, and Sam's skill with researching and data analysis - scary to the extent that he had been sent for official evaluation for suspected occult Talent, and received regular approaches from the Men of Letters to switch organisations - they had a reputation for being able to work even the most dangerous, complex and resource-intensive case on a shoestring, which endeared them to the bean counters but annoyed their colleagues who were constantly questioned on why they couldn't follow suit.)

He'd also spend enough time as a brother and a Hunter to be well versed in prank wars; he was generally acknowledged by his peers as the master in such matters, but every so often one of them would come up with a kamikaze scheme to take on the Prankmeister...

"Hey!" he sat up, reached over the seat and slapped Sam's leg. "Hey, wake up Princess! Where the fuck are we?"

"Gnmf?" Sam opened one eye, yawned extravagantly, then his eyes bugged as he realised that something was seriously out of whack. "Whra'? Huh?"

"It lives!" intoned Dean dramatically. "Seriously, Samantha, wake up, and answer the damned question! Where are we?"

"Where... Dean?" Sam sat up and looked around, perplexity writ large on his face. "What the... where are we?"

"I just asked you that!" snapped Dean.

"What... how should I know!" Sam snapped back, a _Bitchface_ #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?) gracing his features. "Obviously, we're in your car!"

"I know _that_ ," Dean rolled his eyes, "I can see that. What I want to know is, where are we, in the car?" Dawn was just breaking; he peered out into the dim light. "It sure as hell aint the FOOCER garage."

"How the fuck should I know?" Sam shot back. "Last thing I remember, I was at home, in my own bed – maybe a better question would be: _Why_ are we in the car?" He paused, and his eyes narrowed. "You were at the office, weren't you? I checked that Jimi was in his bed, checked the wards, and you hadn't come home when I turned in. You were at the office. Out of hours. Again."

"Yeah," Dean replied defensively, "It aint a crime to put in overtime."

"According to Bobby, it is if it's not approved," Sam told him sternly, "Fuck, you know he pitches a fit when you do that – do you want us all to end up having to sit through another Work-Life Balance seminar? Do you want to go do more counselling with Fergus?" he added ominously, and just a touch maliciously.

"Yeah, yeah, mea maxima culpa," Dean scoffed dismissively, with a small shudder at the thought of having to go and talk to Dr McLeod, the most appallingly compassionate counsellor ever to roam the corridors of employee well-being. "Right now, we got more important issues to deal with." His face darkened. "Ohhhhh, when I find out who did this, if they hurt my Baby, I will tear 'em a new one..."

"Dean," Sam's voice held clear tones of strained patience, "Who have you been pranking?"

"What? Nobody!" Dean replied.

"Well, you've annoyed _somebody_ to the extent that they have put in the time and effort to contrive... _this_ ," he gestured vaguely, "You pissed somebody off, and they've moved me out of my bed, and you out of your office, and into the car, so you gotta have done something."

"It wasn't me!" Dean insisted, "Why are you here? What if it's you who's done the pissing off, huh?"

"It's not me," Sam's tone was even, "Because I am not the self-declared Prankmeister, determined to out-prank all-comers, whether they want to engage or not. Look, it was only a matter of time before they figured out that if they teamed up they could pull off something kind of spectacular..."

"It – wasn't – me!" Dean yelped in exasperation, "Look, I haven't pranked anybody! Well, no more than usual, anyway, certainly not enough to justify anybody doin' this – all I know is, I was waiting for a search to finish, and I thought maybe I could catch a bit of shut-eye on the sofa while I waited, I mean, Charlie's bots are good, but the archive is just so huge now, and some of it was gonna have to go through the Vatican's servers, and the next thing I know, I wake up in my car to the sound of you snoring!"

As he spoke, both brothers simultaneously realised something.

They could still hear snoring...

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

Sam would be the first to admit that he was confused; he woke up in his brother's car, with Dean protesting innocence. However, when his brother suddenly stopped mid-rant and drew his gun, he did the same as they exited the vehicle rapidly.

"What is it?" he hissed, not taking his eyes off the car.

"No idea," Dean replied grimly, likewise watching his car like a hawk, weapon drawing a bead on the door, "But whatever it is, it's big, if the noise is anything to go by..."

The Winchesters were Hunters – they had encountered many unexpected situations, and seen many unexpected things. The monsters they encountered could be cunning, fast, powerful, camouflaged, or a combination of all four, so they were ready for just about anything to bust its way out of the car and come at them slavering.

What they were not expecting was a large Rottweiler to stroll right through the driver's side door as if it wasn't even there, yawn widely, stretch languorously, shake thoroughly, then give them a happy good morning whuff.

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

"Okaaaaay, so, He aint a skinwalker," announced Dean, putting his silver blade away. "He aint a were-anything, he aint a shapeshifter, he's, uh, he's a dog." He checked the tag on the animal's collar. "A dog named Jimi."

"Yeah?" Sam chuckled in spite of himself. "That's a coincidence. He's a lot bigger than our Jimi – it'd take five or six Beagles to make one of this guy." He frowned in thought as he examined the animal's collar. "Look at these tags and charms – he's not just any dog, he belongs to somebody who's familiar with our line of work. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say his tags are identical to Jimi's. Our Jimi, I mean, Beagle-Jimi."

"You think he's a Hunter's dog?" Dean blinked. "Like, a working dog, Hunts alongside his Hunter? He's got the size, that's for sure. He's one big-ass dog. What's he doin' in my car?"

Sam turned a scowl on his brother. "Dean, I don't know what _I_ was doing in your car," he said, "Let alone what a damned huge dog was doing there. A better question might be, how the hell did he walk right through the frigging door like it was made of smoke?"

"Maybe he's a Wildhunt dog," theorised Dean, "Aint they supposed to be descended from a Hellhound?"

"Wildhunt breeds German Shepherds," Sam clarified, "And that's just an urban legend about the origin of the kennel; they've had the occasional throwback puppy who looks pretty diabolical, though. Kevin in R&D has some ideas about how to set up a test to determine whether it's true or not, but Bobby won't let anybody try to get close enough to a Hellhound to get a positive control sample. Anyway, this guy's a Rottie. Maybe from the Schwartzhund kennel, but he doesn't have any tattoos." The dog Jimi lolled his tongue as Sam examined his ears, shamelessly soliciting more pats. "He sure is friendly though."

"Yeah, it could've been a lot worse," Dean shrugged, patting the dog as it transferred attention to him, a doggy smile on the big earnest face as it pestered him for more ear ruffling. "It could have been something much nastier. Fucked if I know how he fit himself in the foot well like that, he's huge, aint ya, fella? Although I gotta admit, I'm kinda concerned about how a big-ass dog ended up in my Baby."

"Dean." Crisis averted, Sam's voice was now dangerously calm as he moved on to what he clearly considered to be more pressing business. "I'm not so concerned about the fact that there was a big-ass dog sleeping in your car. I'm more concerned about the fact that _we_ were sleeping in your car." He looked around as he took out his phone. "Your car, last known location the FOOCER secure parking, which is now in the middle of a decidedly public parking lot."

"And we got Jimi here," Dean reminded him, "Jimi the big-ass dog."

"Yeah, and Jimi the big-ass dog, wherever the fuck he came from." He paused, apparently deep in thought. "If it's a prank, it's pretty damned elaborate, and, if I'm honest, ballsy – roofieing a couple of workmates, who are Hunters, and driving hours through the night to leave 'em in another state, well, it's suicidal, is what it is."

"Damned straight," Dean growled, "I find out that anybody drove my Baby without askin', I will personally tear 'em a new one, and I will smile while I do it."

"I mean professionally," Sam rolled his eyes, "A stunt like this will mean that the perpetrators will definitely face a disciplinary hearing, and be dismissed. There may be criminal charges. And as annoying as you are, I don't think anybody we work with would want to get back at the Prankmeister so badly that they'd be prepared to destroy their careers, acquire a criminal record, and serve a prison sentence."

"And why add in a big-ass dog?" added Dean.

"Yeah, that to," Sam conceded. "No, this is this is way beyond the pay grade of anybody we work with looking to dish out pranking revenge; this smacks of fugly payback. I'm gonna call Bobby."

"Don't do that!" Dean yelped.

"We have to," Sam scowled, "Because this is some seriously weird shit happening here, and it could be dangerous."

"Well, we'll, you know, figure it out, and deal with it," Dean stated, "We're Hunters, Sam, we deal with weird shit for a living. Weird shit is what we get paid to do."

"The point is, Dean, that weird shit has happened directly to us!"

"You can't call Bobby!" Dean practically wailed.

"Why not?" demanded Sam.

"Because he'll call us idjits, and want to know what I've been up to!"

"Dean, _I_ want to know what you've been up to!" Sam shot back. "And we are going to start with exactly what you were doing last night, when you were at work when you shouldn't have been, doing fuck knows what that you probably shouldn't have been. You've got a day off, but I'm supposed to be in the office in... crap, two hours, and I don't even know where we are!"

"Are you suggesting that I, what, accidentally zapped us away from work and home to here."

Sam gave his brother a look that was somewhere between amusement and pity. "Dean, that would be like suggesting that a kindergartener playing around with his big brother's Lego accidentally built a nuclear pile and started a cold fusion reaction. But I'm wondering if something you did initiated a cascade. The first long brick on the bottom row, so to speak."

"Well, if somebody's moved us and the car out _here_ , can you just, you know," Dean waved a hand vaguely, "Just, kind, of zap us right back _there_? I mean, you're good with the spellcraft, bro, you're scary smart with that side of the business, Bobby's always sayin' he wishes you'd get into the R&D lab with Kevin, and the Men O' Letters keep sniffin' around..."

He wilted into silence under the withering look from his little brother. "Okay, first of all, I want to stay operational, I've been clear about that for years now," Sam growled, "And you know enough about the Craft to know that a translocation is high level – and that's just with inanimate objects! Fuck, you gotta be an established Level Five before you can even _try_ line-of-sight with a penny, and demonstrably at least capable of working at Level Six before they'll even let you try with the sandwich, and..."

"The sandwich?" Dean looked confused. "Seriously? You practise on a sandwich?"

Sam sighed. "It's tradition. You know what the Craft is like, there's at least as much tradition as systematic application, that's just bound up in the whole way that spellcraft works. The first time you try a translocation on something organic, you try it with a sandwich."

"Sounds like a criminal waste of a sandwich," muttered Dean, never one to tolerate needles cruelty to delicious foodstuffs.

"Yeah, usually it is," agreed Sam, "That's the point – it's difficult enough with inorganic matter. It's diabolically difficult with organic matter..."

"Can Bobby do the sandwich?"

"What?"

"Can Bobby do the sandwich? Can Bobby move a sandwich?" Sam's expression became shuttered. "What?"

"Dean, you know that practitioners don't talk shop outside of, well, shop, so to speak, so unless you get your shit together and get at least Level One accreditation..."

"Come on, Sam," wheedled Dean, "I just wanna know if Bobby can do the sandwich!"

Sam gave him a serious look. "You can't talk about this to anybody."

"Absolutely not," Dean replied, with an equally serious mien, indicating that he wouldn't tell another soul without instructing them not to tell another soul.

"Well, okay, yeah, Bobby can do the sandwich." Sam paused. "Occasionally he does the sandwich when he's in his office, if he's busy and doesn't want to interrupt what he's doing to go get something to eat. The staff in the canteen just put it on his tab."

"What about other stuff?"

"What?"

"Other stuff? Like, if you weren't in the mood for a sandwich, if you thought, oh, I could really eat a doughnut now, could you do that?"

"Well, yeah," Sam shrugged. "It's starting off learning with a food item that's the tradition. The Brits use a sandwich, like us, it's where we get it from. So does Canada. Except for Quebec, they use cretons on toast. In Japan, it's a piece of narezushi, in France it's a cheese pastry, in subSaharan Africa it's a roasted tuber wrapped in biltong, in the middle East it's a piece of baklava, in Australia it's a small meat pie..."

Dean's face lit up. "You can do it with pie?"

"The point _is_ , a food item is a small non-sentient chunk of organic matter, which is waaaaaay more complicated than inorganics. And when it goes wrong, and anybody's first attempt _always_ goes wrong, the results are harmlessly hilarious. Especially if there's custard involved. And as for an actual living breathing animal of any sort, over any distance, without line of sight, well, there's only one documented case of anybody actually pulling it off in front of reliable qualified witnesses, decades ago, a white witch in Queensland, Australia, she did it to save a puppy who fell down a flooded derelict mine shaft and got injured, and nobody knows how she did it!"

"Why doesn't somebody just ask her?" Dean queried with genuine curiosity.

"Because she's dead," Sam snapped, in a tone indicating that the entire topic was officially closed for the season, "So, no, Dean, I _can't_ just 'kind of zap us back there'." He looked around: the sun was rising, bringing their surroundings into clearer view. "Anyway, first of all I'd have to know where 'here' is."

"Well, do that," Dean gestured imperiously, whilst patting the dog with the other hand as Jimi-the-big-ass-dog-who-wasn't-their-Beagle leaned into the attention happily, "Figure out where we are."

"Okaaaaaaay... we're in Helena, in Montana," Sam supplied promptly.

Dean stared at him. "That's kind of scary, bro. You sure you weren't sandbaggin' in your Talent evaluation?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Sam huffed, "It has nothing to do with Talent, and everything to do with that sign over there. The sign for the Holter Museum of Art." He paused. "Announcing their Disney retrospective exhibition."

"Disney?" Dean smiled. "Oh, man, have we got time to drop in, you know I always wanted to go to Disneyland when we were kids, and then, well, we've just never gotten around to it, there's always something else to be Hunted, somebody else to be saved, hey maybe they'll be sellin' the Mickey ears, and..."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, you jerk..." Sam huffed, and glowered at his brother. "Look, all I'm saying is... I've got a kind of... weird feeling about this."

Dean's demeanour immediately became serious; despite the official verdict, his little brother had a knack of identifying occultly charged items or situations. "Sam, are you bein' absolutely and completely straight with me that you weren't you sandbaggin'?"

"No!" Sam snapped, "Look, I don't have a Talent that I'd be able to train up to anything _maybe_ , and it's a big _maybe_ , worthwhile, without dropping Hunting altogether, and concentrating on that full time, okay? I've been clear about that. It's just... I really think we should contact Bobby, and tell him everything." He sighed. "At least, I'll be able to explain why I'm gonna miss this morning's meeting."

As he spoke, Dean's stomach let out a long, gurgling rumble.

"Well, at least we don't have to miss this morning's breakfast," shrugged Dean, turning back to the car. "A crisis is better dealt with on a full stomach, that's what Bobby says."

"What about sudden onset acute appendicitis? Or, in fact, any crisis involving a serious injury requiring the administration of a general anaesthetic for treatment? A full stomach would be a liability, then."

"Fine, bitch, when you call Bobby you can tell him he's wrong. Get in."

* * *

Gasp! It's the Winchesters, Jim, but not as we know them. Professional Hunters? What on earth are they doing here? What is this plot bunny up to? And what is wiya's name? John Edgar, maybe, but perhaps a reader will figure it out. Feed wiya nice juicy reviews to encourage further dictation!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Back in the car, Dean frowned at the dash. "Crap."

"What?"

"Her gauge is on the fritz." He tapped at the glass. "I filled her up yesterday, but it's showing less than a quarter of a tank. Oh, sweetheart," he patted the wheel tenderly, "Your sensor givin' you trouble? I'll have a look at it as soon as I can, I promise."

"There's something wrong with a person who talks to his car like it's his favourite child." Sam humphed.

"I don't do that!" Dean protested.

"Yeah you do."

"No, I don't," Dean reiterated. "Baby is not my favourite child."

"No?"

"No," Dean stated firmly. "I don't have a 'favourite child'. I love Baby just as much as I love Honey, and vice versa."

"How many times do I have to say this?" Sam practically wailed, "They are inanimate objects, Dean! Machines! Things!"

"That's a very hurtful thing to say," Dean sniffed disdainfully.

"For fuck's sake, Dean, a car and a motorcycle cannot have feelings!"

"They don't, but I do," Dean asserted, "And you dissin' my girls, that's hurtful. So stop it. Or I'll see you dragged off to Fergus to be counselled about harassment."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam rolled his eyes, and reached into his pocket for his phone. "Let me just... what the fuck?"

"What?"

"Dean, this..." Sam gawped at the item in his hand. "This isn't my phone."

"What?"

"It's not my phone!" Sam yapped, "This phone is not my phone!"

"Whaddya mean, it's not your phone? Of course it's your phone! It's in your pocket, it's totally your phone!"

"It's not my phone," Sam repeated, as Dean pulled back off the street. "At least, it's not my latest phone. Mine is an S8. This thing, it's, it's, it's years old!"

"You didn't grab an old one by mistake?" asked Dean, peering at the offending electronic item, "We got too many of 'em kickin' around at home. We should pass 'em on to Q."

"No, I didn't," Sam said between clenched teeth, "I didn't grab anything this morning, because I went from being in BED to being in YOUR CAR without actually having the CHANCE to grab anything!"

"All right, all right, keep your wig on, Francis," said Dean, "So, part of this whole, you know, weird situation includes, uh, phone regression."

Sam fiddled with the screen. "And don't call him Q," he growled. "He has a name. His name is Kevin. Giving people demeaning nicknames is not appropriate workplace behaviour."

"It's not demeaning!" protested Dean, "It recognises him as our super-genius in R&D!"

"You'll land us all in another briefing on Respect In The Workplace," Sam intoned ominously. "Remember the last one? After Bobby found out we were referring to Fergus as 'Lucky the Leprechaun'?"

"Yeeeerg," Dean shuddered. "Death by PowerPoint. And I-statements. Don't remind me."

"Well, just think how much everybody will looooove you if we have to do it again," his brother warned. "What does Kevin want old phones for, anyway?"

"It's some remote activation trap thing he's workin' on," Dean replied, "He rewires 'em, turns 'em into a digital occult summoning-confinement field."

Sam gave his brother an incredulous stare. "Seriously?"

Dean shrugged. "The future of lots of industry is goin' digital," he said philosophically, "Don't see why Huntin' would be any different. Think how useful a remotely activated devil's trap would be!"

"And he thinks he can get it working?"

"If anybody can, it's Q," Dean noted. It'd make some bits of our job safer. He also hopes it might answer one of those burning questions that humanity has about the workings of, well, the whole once-you-re-dead thing. Post-mortality destination of the soul."

Sam looked interested. "Like... the true occult nature of Hell? Where demons come from? Wow, that would be..."

"Well, actually, the question he's most interested in is 'Did Steve Jobs go to Hell?', but I guess it might be able to pick up other things too," Dean mused. "I think he wants to get a Hellhound trap working, try to convince Bobby to let him work up a diabolical heritage test for dogs." He turned around to look at big-ass dog Jimi, who was slouched comfortably across the back seat. "Not that we need to worry about that with this fella," he grinned at the dog, who gave him a doggy grin back and thumped his tail a few times, "He's got good-boy written all over him."

Sam's attention was fully back on his phone. "Well it still unlocks," he mused, heading for the contacts, "And I've got a signal, so..." His voice petered out as he scrolled down. "This is wrong."

"Huh?"

"This is... Dean, these numbers. They're... wrong." He turned a worried expression to his big brother. "This list is a lot shorter than mine. And it's missing contacts."

"Well, maybe your phone got scrambled when, uh, when whatever just, you know, zapped us here."

"The switchboard number is missing," Sam added.

"Well, just call Bobby directly."

Sam looked doubtful. "He's probably barely even out of bed yet. You know what he's like if anybody calls him before he's had his second coffee for the day – if it's not a matter of imminent life or death, he'll call me 'idjit' with extreme prejudice..."

As he spoke, the screen flashed a message, then dimmed...

"What the..."

Then went black.

"Fuck!" yapped Sam, "My... my phone just died!"

"Now who's treatin' machines like they're living things?" scoffed Dean.

"No, I mean, the battery just ran out!' clarified Sam, a tone of bewildered desperation in his voice. "How does that happen? How does that even happen?"

"Well, what happens is, as you use your phone, it uses the power of the battery to..."

"No, no, no!" Sam almost yelled at his brother, "How does my phone run out of charge? I keep it charged! I plug it in, every night, without fail!" He reached for the glove box, and scrabbled through it. "Where's my power bank?" he asked the universe, a note of panic in the query, "Where's my power bank? How can I charge my phone without my power bank?!"

"Hey, hey, calm down," instructed Dean in a soothing tone, knowing that being without a functioning phone was for Sam as distressing as the thought of heading off on a job unarmed would be to himself, "This aint a problem, Sammy, you can plug your phone into Baby, and she will recharge it for you, okay?"

"Okay," echoed Sam, not sounding completely happy.

"So first, let's eat," Dean continued, reaching for his own phone, "And maybe we'll find somewhere where you can plug in your phone right there, then by the time we've had breakfast, your phone will be charged, and everything will look just that little bit better, and Bobby will be awake and caffeinated, and..."

"That's not your phone," Sam interrupted flatly.

"Huh?" He looked down at the item in his hand. It was a phone. But it wasn't his phone.

"Uh, okay, well, for the purposes of finding somewhere to eat, that don't matter," he said, sounding a lot calmer than he actually was starting to feel, "As long as I can find us somewhere to eat..."

It wouldn't switch on.

"It's dead too, isn't it?" said Sam quietly.

"Yeah, I think it is," agreed Dean, "But this is not the end of the world, Sam. Hunters operated for a very long time without cell phones. There was even a time, in the distant past, where if they wanted to eat breakfast, they had to go park in a busy street, and walk along, using only their eyes, lookin' for a diner..."

Sam shot him another _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean).

"So, that's what we're gonna do," he went on firmly, a true believer in the power of food to alleviate all manner of medical, social, personal, supernatural and geometrical ills. "Just like our forebears. And it's your turn to pay, bitch."

"No it isn't!" Sam countered, "I paid last time we ate breakfast out! Two days ago!"

"No you didn't," Dean sniffed disdainfully.

"Yeah I did."

"No you didn't."

"Yeah I did!"

"You didn't."

"I did!"

"No you didn't."

"I totally did!"

"Didn't."

"Did!"

"Didn't."

"Did!"

"Didn't."

"Did! AND I'll prove it to you," Sam announced a touch smugly, reaching for his wallet. "I'll still have the receipt. We'll have breakfast, which you will pay for, and you can eat your words as an entrée..."

He opened his wallet; his voice stuttered to a halt and the grin died on his face as he rifled through it.

Dean smiled as annoyingly as he knew how. "Looks like somebody else is gonna be snackin' on his own words this morning, bro, let's hope they're meat-free, you great big emo vegiesaurus..."

"It's empty."

Dean sighed happily. "Yup, but look on the bright side, Sammy,you'll be so full from eatin' your words, you won't want so much rabbit food, so..."

"No, I mean, my wallet is... empty." He turned it upside down by way of demonstration. "There is no cash in my wallet."

"Well, you can just put it on your card," Dean kept grinning. "Hey, make sure you get a customer copy of the receipt!"

"No, I... I got cash out yesterday," Sam's voice was fully of real worry. "On the way home, I dropped in to the pet store to get Jimi's kibble, and the bank is right across the street, so I got cash out, and, and... I don't have any of my cards."

Dean's face fell. "What? Like, they've been stolen?"

"Not exactly." He extracted a credit card. "I've got this one, in the name of Sam Young. And this one, in the name of... Kirk Hammett?"

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Oh – my – God. Jesus, Sam, what the fuck?"

"Yeah, you're telling me..."

Dean's eyes were a mask of horror. "You... you _stole_ Kirk Hammett's credit card?"

"What? No! I haven't stolen..."

"You stole _Kirk Hammett's_ credit card?"

"Dean, I haven't..."

You stole Kirk Hammett's _credit card_?"

"Will you just shut up for a moment and listen to..."

"This is your perverse idea of a joke, is it? Mr Oh-I-Can't-Do-A-Translocation, you came along to the show with me last month, and as some twisted act of petty revenge to freak me out, you _did_ do a translocation, and you did it to _steal_ a metal god's _credit card_?"

"DEAN! SHUT! UP!" yowled Sam, shooting his brother a full frontal _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean). "I haven't stolen anything! It was just here! I only just found it now, right here, in front of you! This..." he was momentarily lost for words. "This looks like my wallet, and it's in my pocket where I carry my wallet, but... it's not my wallet. No health insurance card, no social security, all my stuff is gone. But look." He held up a driver's licence; the photo was definitely him. "Sam Bonham."

Dean stared at the licence, then back at his brother.

"And then there's this one. Sam Halford."

"Show me that." Dean grabbed it from his brother. "It's a fake," he pronounced eventually, "But a damned good one. Would probably fool just about anybody, if you were pulled over, or needed to show ID for something." After a moment's thought, he reached for his own wallet.

A quick check ascertained that he too was completely cashless, but that wasn't what made his jaw drop. "Oh – my – God."

"What?" Sam asked anxiously, "What?"

Dean looked up at his brother. "I..." wordlessly, he showed Sam a card, holding it as if it might bite him at any moment. "This is... this is... Sam, I have... James Hetfield's credit card in my wallet."

Sam stared at his brother, trying to work out if his brother was experiencing a moment of horror or some sort of transcendent religious experience. "You have... how?"

"I don't know!" Dean yipped, "I don't know! It was just..." he narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Ohhhh Sammy, if I find out you did this..."

"Dean, I didn't do it."

"If I find out that you have zapped this credit card into my wallet..."

"I didn't do it!"

"What did you do, then? Pick his pocket?"

"Dean, I did NOT steal anybody's card! Get that through your head, I DID NOT STEAL ANY CREDIT CARDS!"

Dean stared with incomprehension at the contents of his wallet. "Well, crap," he pronounced eventually, an expression of wary concern on his face.

"Yeah, crap," agreed Sam grimly, his face nonetheless thoughtful as he reached over the seat behind him. "I've got an idea, let me just check... oh, for fuck's sake..."

"What?"

"My laptop!" snapped Sam, brandishing the item as if it had just offended him.

"Yeah, that's what it is," Dean nodded in accord.

"No, I mean, look at it!" insisted Sam.

"Uh, okay." Dean dutifully peered at the proffered platform. "So, if I look at it long enough, will it do a trick or something?"

"What I mean," Sam growled between clenched teeth, "Is that this thing is, is, it's archaic! No, it's neolithic! No, screw that, it's paleolithic!"

Dean stared at him with incomprehension. "Uh, no, pretty sure it's Dell, bro."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a very Samesque huff. "Look, it's just... fuck it," he griped, opening the offending item and starting it up. "I need to check something... shit, the battery's just about dead..."

Before the temporally well-endowed machine flashed a last rude message and died mid-click, Sam was able to do enough to answer his question. "These cards," he said, "They're real, as in, they are real cards, or at least, they're from real companies, but they're maxed out." His expression was worried. "I'd be willing to bet yours are too. I'd go so far as to say that they have been obtained fraudulently." He looked at his brother. "We can't go eat," he said. "We don't have legitimate cards, the ones we do have are fraudulent and maxed out anyway, we don't have anything approaching legal tender, we can't pay."

"Okaaay, so, we go to plan B," Dean told him, starting the car. "Plug in your phone, Sammy, we'll be at breakfast in an hour."

"What? Where are we going?" asked Sam.

"We are going visiting," Dean smiled beatifically as he eased his Baby out of the parking and onto the road. "We are gonna drop in on Andy. He's only an hour away, out of Great Falls, and..."

"Andy? Andy Jaeger?" Sam interrupted. "The guy you brought in after he got bitten by an Old North werewolf?"

"He's the ROIDs' newest recruit," Dean relayed, still smiling.

"Don't call 'em that," muttered Sam, "Remember what I said about demeaning nicknames?"

"They don't care," Dean shrugged, "I mean, they use 'ROID Rage' as their motto."

"You can't just drop in on some guy because the Registered Occult Individuals Division has recruited him!" Sam protested.

"No, but I can drop in on a friend," Dean smiled winningly, "He's a great guy. He's been makin' really good progress – he was containin' himself from his second full moon, and he's already been ticketed officially for Level One shapeshift control. We can get him to ask Jimi here if he knows anything. And you can charge up your phone, your laptop, your heated curlers..."

"Dean," Sam rolled his eyes, "You know that a Level One A-class shapeshifter isn't authorised to attempt it outside FOOCER-certified containment without the presence of a qualified mentor of at least Level Three," Sam reminded him.

"Yeah, but he doesn't have to shift to talk to the dog," Dean pointed out, "Apparently, he's a natural for the canine cognitive thing. Could be because he's just naturally such a nice guy. He's fun, too, I'd drink with him any day."

Sam looked at his brother squarely. "Dean, the last time you 'dropped in' on Andy, and spent the afternoon watching sport with him, you did nothing to discourage him from a bit of 'practise'," he scowled.

"It was safe," Dean answered dismissively, "I was there. Anyway, they all do it, he told me – it's like, it's like, when you're a teenager, and you discover jerkin' off, and you get told not to do it but it's so new and so much fun you want to do it all the time anyway..."

"You are not a qualified mentor!" Sam yelped, "I mean, have you _seen_ the guy when he shapeshifts?"

"Well, yeah," Dean nodded, "I was there, after all."

"He's not a native werewolf, he's an old-time European import!" Sam snapped. "He's an alpha male, and he doesn't have full control yet! I've read his file, Dean - he's over seven feet tall, more than three hundred pounds..."

"Yeah, he's a big boy, all right," Dean chuckled, "He'll be a great asset to the ROIDs. He's a great big hairy marshmallow, you know, he's sooner turn an ankle than step on a mouse..."

"For fuck's sake, his bite strength has been measured at somewhere around eighteen hundred PSI, they don't know for sure because he broke the damned instrumentation!" Sam snapped, "What if he'd turned on you?"

"He didn't," Dean said airily, "And if he had, I'd have stopped him."

"He got stuck," Sam went on with relentless disapproval, "You were horsing around, and he got stuck in his wolf form."

Dean laughed. "Hey, I had no idea that a werewolf that big could look so embarrassed. Seriously, he looked like Jimi when he's got caught with his nose in the garbage."

"He could've been sanctioned!" Sam yapped in annoyance. "If anybody found out, both of you could've ended up facing a disciplinary hearing!"

"But he wasn't," Dean said with infuriating serenity. "In fact, we found out that if he just keeps drinking beer, it's easier for him to shift back to human. That's a really useful finding, right there." He paused. "The whole suddenly-sitting-next-to-a-naked-dude thing though, I gotta tell ya, not cool..."

Sam huffed and glowered at his brother. "Look, all I'm saying is... Dean, I've got a kind of... weird feeling about this, this whole fucked up situation. Seriously."

"I know. And we'll fix it. We'll go see Andy, and eat, and charge up, and everything will be better." Dean gave his brother his most winning smile. "We'll have this sorted out in a couple of hours. And then you can charge up your laptop, and Skype your meeting. Everything's under control, Sammy."

* * *

Oh dear, famous last words - Dean should know better, he really should.

The plot bunny's name still hasn't become apparent; hetatess thought Bobby John, but I thought it might be John Edgar, which has a distinctly Federal overtone. Feel free to make further suggestions, because Reviews are the Delicious Pancakes at the Belated Breakfast of Life!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"You didn't have to come with me, you know."

"What?" Sam turned to his brother; they'd been driving in silence for a while, both ruminating on the strange situation in which they found themselves. "Where?"

"The Metallica job," Dean clarified. "You didn't have to come with me."

"Yeah I did," Sam argued, "And you know it – even a recon on a potential A-class shapeshifter cannot be undertaken solo, it's in the regs."

"I could've gone with somebody else. I could've gone with Andy, he's a fan."

"No you couldn't, it was the full moon. That was the whole _point_ of the timing."

"At least you could've dressed for the occasion."

"What?"

"You could've dressed for the occasion."

"Dressed for the... what the hell is that even supposed to mean?"

"You coulda worn a shirt."

"What the fuck? I did wear a shirt!"

"A band shirt, Sam, you coulda worn a band shirt, to blend in!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake..."

"I mean, of all the shirts you could've picked, you had to go with that one?"

"I don't believe this, you're still bitching about my shirt."

"That one? To a Metallica gig?"

"You have an unnatural fixation on my shirt."

"At the very least you coulda worn a flannel, or something."

"That would've been too hot."

"It's a weird floral horror, Sam!"

"It's not!"

"You only wore it to embarrass me!"

"I did not! Dean, it was a perfectly fine shirt to wear to a live show!"

"Yeah, to the Grateful Dead, perhaps, or a RuPaul gig."

"Dean, it's time you got over my shirt!" Sam snapped, "And right now, we have bigger things to worry about than a fucking shirt, okay? So shut up about the damned shirt!"

Dean glowered briefly, but subsided; silence descended once more...

"Anyway, I'm glad it was a bust."

"Yeah, me too."

"Why would you care? You don't even like their music!"

"Maybe not, but contrary to what you might believe, I don't actually enjoy the paperwork. A false alarm is easy to deal with, it's a three-page form. If we gotta bring in an unregistered occult individual, even one who's been self-containing and gone undetected for years, it's an administrative nightmare."

"Three pages? Three entire pages? Ha! I could do it in one paragraph. One line. One sentence."

"Dean..."

"I don't get it, I just do not get it, even the simplest things have some huge-ass detailed complicated form to fill in! And you just know it's gonna disappear into the archives, and nobody will ever look at it again. Why does it always have to be so, so, so _wordy_? We're Hunters, not secretaries!"

"Dean..."

"All it needs is some documentation stating that we checked it out and there was nothing to worry about, yeah?"

"Dean..."

"I mean, how complicated is it, really? How complicated does it have to be? It's like, the paper-pushers have decided that it has to be a complicated process, in order to keep themselves in a job."

"Dean..."

"Seriously, 'We checked it out and despite what he looks like Mr James Alan Hetfield aint a werewolf'. That's it. That's all it needs."

"Oh, God," Sam sighed, well acquainted with his brother's dislike of dealing with the administrative requirements of working for a federal agency, "Okay, you hate paperwork, I get it, so now you can shut up about it. Damn it," he added under his breath, going back to staring at his phone.

"Sam, it won't charge any faster from you glarin' at it," remarked Dean.

"This is so slow," Sam complained, "If I just had my power bank..."

"Well, you don't," Dean cut him off, "So make do with what you got. Come on, Sammy, 'My phone aint charging up fast enough' is a working definition of a First World Problem. Just be patient."

"Hah! This from the man who pitched a fit when the cafeteria ran out of bacon," scoffed Sam, "The delivery van had been 30 minutes late due to a flat tyre, and you had to wait an extra half an hour for your first bacon cheeseburger of the day, and you acted like it was the end of the world!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yeah you did."

"No I did not. Anyway, it was totally different."

"How? How was it totally different?"

"Because cowpig sandwich, Sam," Dean declared loftily. "And that was the day before the night we did the salt and burn on the angry spirit that was hauntin' that steak house, just across the border in North Dakota, remember?"

Sam cast his mind back. "Yeah, one Quentin Passwater, owner of the 'V For Vegandetta' café, wasn't it? Died tragically when his experimental batch of broccoli kombucha exploded, then started haunting the next business that opened there?"

"That's the one," Dean smiled happily at the remembrance of the free dinner the proprietor of the Reign In Blood steak house had given them. "What a great place. And they played great music. That place is awesome!"

"Dean, what the hell does a salt and burn job have to do with you practically throwing a tantrum because your burger was late?"

"Becaaaaause," Dean rolled his eyes, "When you're goin' into battle against the angry spirit of a rampant raging vegan, having pigmeat on your breath is a vital defence measure."

"What? Oh, God, you are so full of shit..."

Dean's stomach chose that moment to rumble long, loud and insistently. "Damn, why did you have to start talking about food?" he complained.

"Because you're a jerk," Sam snapped back, "God, I hope Andy has a coffee machine, or instant, or a chicory bush in the yard, Maxwell House, International Roast, anything."

"Yeah," Dean sighed, also missing his first morning coffee hit. "Don't worry, the guy's a Hunter now, he'll have a machine, or a plunger at the very least."

It was still relatively early in the morning, so they made it through Great Falls and out to the more sparsely inhabited road where the latest recruit to FOOCER's Registered Occult Individuals Division lived in good time, which was a good thing, because in their breakfast-deficient and caffeine-depleted state the bickering was only going to get worse.

"Finally," humphed Sam as Dean pulled into a gravel drive and parked behind a late model SUV with a boat on a trailer next to it. "Wow, how much are the ROIDS paying their recruits?"

"That's not his," Dean waved a hand dismissively, "Must be his brother's. Let me just go see who's home."

He headed for the front porch; when he returned a few minutes later, his face was grim.

"What?" asked Sam, clutching his phone anxiously as Dean got in.

"He don't live here anymore," Dean told him shortly.

Sam stared at him. "Well, great," he snapped, with a Bitchface #15™ (There Had Better Be A Good Explanation For This, Dean), "You've dragged us across the state, on the promise of breakfast and coffee and electricity, to visit somebody you claim is your buddy, and he moved without telling you? What sort of..." Sam's outrage died away as he watched his brother's expression. "What?"

"Accordin' to the nice lady who's livin' there now, she and her husband own the place," Dean told him.

Sam gave Dean a level stare. "Are you sure this is the right address?"

"Absolutely," stated Dean. "I was here just a couple of months ago."

Sam swore under his breath. "Okay," he said, his demeanour all business as he tapped at his phone, "If Andy's in some sort of trouble, we gotta..."

"She says they bought the place from a guy called Jaeger," Dean went on. "She remembers because of the pronunciation – her son was all 'Oh, like out of _Pacific Rim_!'."

Sam looked thoughtful, then tapped at his phone. "Okay, local directory lists this address as being in the name of Gray. On the surface, it checks out, bro. Look, we don't know what was going on, there may have been a really good reason for Andy selling up in a hurry, we don't know the circumstances of..."

Dean's face was carefully neutral as he interrupted. "Sam, she said they bought the house a few years ago."

Sam's jaw dropped. " _What?_ But that's..."

"Yup," confirmed Dean, "That's impossible."

"That's it, I'm calling Bobby," Sam tapped at his cell again. "Something seriously weird is happening here, and we need to find out what it is. I will call Bobby, and you can call Andy, and..."

"My phone's dead, bro," Dean reminded him.

"Oh, _fuck,_ I want my power bank! Come on, come on," Sam muttered as the connection chirped and clicked at him, "Come on... finally! Hey, Bobby, it's Sam, look something..."

The voice on the other end wasn't his boss; it was a calm and polite recording informing him that he was out of minutes.

Sam's eyes bugged. "Out of minutes?" He stared at the phone as if it was a beloved and faithful pet that had suddenly bitten him. " _Out_ of _minutes_?"

"Huh?" Dean looked mystified.

"This thing, this archaic _thing_ ," Sam snarled at the phone, "This antiquated relic says that I'm out of minutes! What the _fuck_? What the actual _fuck_?"

Dean gawped at his brother. "Uh, okay, that's no big deal, it just means you gotta recharge your..."

"No, Dean, I do not gotta recharge anything!" Sam yelled. "I do not gotta recharge, top off, or update, because I don't _need_ minutes, Dean, I'm on a _plan_!"

"Right, right," Dean nodded, eyeing his brother warily.

"It's a good plan, Dean."

"Yeah, I'm sure it is," Dean nodded and smiled.

"It's a very good plan, Dean," Sam went on, a note of hysteria creeping into his voice, "A very good plan, with a lot of data, and unlimited calls and texts..."

"Yeah, okay, look, maybe there's been some sort of mix-up with the billing, you know, maybe you forgot to pay it and they've, uh, sent you the wrong recording."

Sam gave Dean a withering stare that would have been appropriate on the face of a cardiac surgeon who's just been told 'Well, maybe your transplant patient died because you just, you know, forgot to put the new heart in before you sewed him up again.' "I always pay the bill on time," he said, one eye twitching a couple of times, "I have an automatic debit in place, so the bill is always paid on time, so my phone is always ready for use..."

"Uh, yeah, I believe that."

"...And I keep full and accurate records of my usage for tax purposes in accordance with the Federal Employee Code of Conduct and the requirements for claiming work deductions as laid out under IRS jurisdiction within federal law..."

"Yeah, sure."

"...And I have my other devices on the same plan, and I do that so I always have access wherever I am, because I need it for work, I need to be connected, I have to be connected to do my job, I have to be connected..."

"Sam!" Dean barked his brother's name, and grabbed him by the shoulder. He knew his brother hated to be without internet service, or at the very least secure wifi coverage. Sam's face was a picture of bewilderment. "Hey, look at me, look at me, we will figure this out, okay? Whatever has happened, we are Hunters, and we will figure it out. That's what we do, right?"

Sam nodded. "Right," he replied, looking sadly at his phone. As he watched it, the screen darkened, and once more, switched off for lack of power.

Sam let out a sad little noise.

In the back seat, Jimi the big-ass dog sat up, whuffed supportively, then hung his big square head over the bench seat, and tenderly began to wash Sam's left ear.

"There, see? Jimi wants you to know everything will be okay," said Dean, starting the car, "So, we'll head back to Great Falls, and find somewhere to charge things up, and we will figure this out, and we'll have you back on your nitro-sucking turbo-charging double-jointed plan before you can say 'homepage'."

Fixing his expression to be calmer than he felt, and trying to ignore the roiling in his gut that was not entirely due to hunger, he started the car.

* * *

Oh Dean, I feel your pain – I too have experienced this sartorial discombobulation, on the occasion when, some nearly-thirty years ago, a galpal turned up to a Dio show wearing a _pink cardigan_. It was either utterly out of place, or brutally metal; to this day I have not figured out which.

And anybody who tries to brew kombucha out of broccoli, indeed anybody who tries to brew _anything_ out of broccoli, deserves to be exploded.

If Sam at least seems a bit slow on the uptake as to what is happening here, bear in mind that the poor lad is being traumatised by outdated devices and lack of high-speed connectivity, so cut him some slack. Also, it's more fun this way if we can spin the bewilderment out. Feed John Edgar (yes, I think that might be his name) reviews to make him talkative, and let's see how much fun we can have at the displaced Winchesters' expense...


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

They made it back to Great Falls before Baby's engine began to splutter; Dean managed to find an unlimited park before she gave one last juddering choke, and stalled.

"What's wrong with the car?" Sam asked anxiously.

"Same thing that's wrong with me," Dean answered gloomily, "She's hungry." He tapped at the fuel gauge, knowing as he did so that there was nothing wrong with the sensor. "She aint goin' anywhere else until I can fill her tank again. Damn, I never let the tank run empty, you can get all sorts of crap getting through the line, even if you regularly drain it and clean it out..."

Sam got out, and looked around. "There," he pointed at a bus stop shelter, then headed for it. "Here we go. Map."

"What are we lookin' for?" Dean asked.

"Library," Sam replied – just saying the word out loud seeming to put more confidence into his demeanour. "Somewhere in this town is a public library, where we can charge our cells and this laptop. These days most libraries have wifi, or at the very least a limited data service. I'll send Bobby an email, we re-establish comms, brief him on what's happened, and plan from there."

"Attaboy Sammy," Dean grinned, "There's a reason he wants you to take over when he retires."

"No he doesn't," Sam muttered, his face pinking slightly.

"Yeah he does," Dean insisted, "It's called 'succession planning'. Every successful organisation must have strategies in place to ensure a seamless transition when members of senior management leave, to ensure retention of business knowledge and avoid loss of corporate memory..."

Sam stared at his brother. "Where the fuck did that bit of jargon come from?"

Dean's face darkened. "Bobby made me sit through the corporate restructuring briefing," he griped.

"Dean, everybody had to sit through the corporate restructure briefing," Sam reminded him.

"He made me sit through it again!" Dean practically pouted. "Twice!"

"Well, you should've taken it more seriously first time around," Sam told him a little primly.

"How the fuck am I supposed to take that sort of thing seriously?" Dean asked the uncaring universe, "What difference is it gonna make to the way I do my job, huh? Will it make black dogs easier to kill? Will it help me identify a rugaru? Noooooo, some bean-counter comes to talk to us about the way the chairs are gonna be re-arranged in the bigwigs' boardroom, and..."

"The restructuring of the Senior Leadership Team is actually a big deal," Sam interrupted, "And if you'd paid attention, you'd know that! It brings FOOCER under the aegis of..."

"I did pay attention!" Dean cut in, "I even offered to join the group who would brief everybody on the changes! I put my hand up to be a Change Champion, Sam! Just like you! I was willing to do my bit for the organisation of the organisation!"

"Yeah, you were," Sam agreed, "And what a triumph _that_ turned out to be."

"It's not my fault if they wouldn't take me seriously," Dean complained snippily.

"Dean, they wouldn't take you seriously because _you_ wouldn't take the whole process seriously!" Sam snapped back.

"I did so," Dean said sulkily, "I turned up to the Change Champion workshop and everything!"

"Well, maybe you might've been taken more seriously if you'd tried to be a bit more professional about it," suggested Sam.

"I was!" Dean insisted, "I was on time and everything!"

Dean, you turned up wearing a suit of armour!"

"Yeah, I was gonna be somebody's champion, that's how you do it."

"Seriously, I still haven't gotten an adequate answer out of you, what the fuck possessed you to turn up in chainmail?"

"Well, you'd have pulled the mother of all Bitchfaces if I'd worn a cape with my shorts over my pants and called myself Captain Corporate..."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly reining in his temper. "Okay, let's see... yeah, there. It's just a couple of streets from here. Let's go."

They headed back to the car, where it became apparent that a vital item was missing.

"Where's the damned wall socket charger?" complained Sam, ratting through the glove compartment, "The charger should be in here! With my power bank! Oh, God, I miss my power bank..."

"We could look in the trunk," Dean shrugged, moving to the rear of the car and opening it. "There might be some... holy crap."

"What?" Sam left of his futile search and joined his brother. "Why do you say... oh. That's... that's..."

Two battered duffel bags, scuffed and repaired, and stuffed completely full, were jammed into the trunk.

"Are they... Sammy, are those ours?" asked Dean in a dazed tone.

"Uh, well, they look like ours," Sam said uncertainly, "I mean, they look like what ours would look like, if you aged them another twenty years and occasionally ran them over with a tracked vehicle, maybe."

"If they're ours... why are they so full?" Dean paused, then went to unzip one of the completely full duffels. "Shit, there's... Sam, this is like I'm carrying my whole life around in this thing!" He unzipped the other one. "And that is definitely yours."

"Let me check," said Sam.

"No need, bro." Despite the baffling circumstances, Dean managed to find a small grin as he reached into his brother's bag and withdrew a bottle of shampoo. "This is definitely yours."

Sam snatched it away from his brother. "Okay, if I wasn't before, I am, of this moment, _officially_ weirded out," he announced, "Why the hell are we in your car, with large quantities of our belongings in our duffels as if we've, we've, we've run away from home or something?"

"I don't know, Sam," Dean replied quietly, "But we'll figure it out."

Sam glared at 'his' bag, and then began to rummage around down the side of the tightly packed contents. "Well, if it is 'mine', there should be... aha!" With a triumphant flourish he pulled a charger from the bag. "Right, let's go and get re-connected to the rest of the world."

"We can't leave Jimi the big-ass dog by himself in the car," Dean protested.

"Well, he'll have to come with us, and wait outside," replied Sam.

"He might not like that," Dean murmured.

"Well, you can't bring dogs into a public library," Sam stated, "So he doesn't have a choice. We won't be long."

"Yeah, but..." as he spoke, Dean's eye fell on something tucked behind one of the duffels. He pulled it out, and inspected it. Then he turned to his brother, and smiled.

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

Cathy was just starting up the public access terminals as the first visitors of the day arrived. There were a few regulars, but also a couple of newcomers, two guys who looked slightly scruffy, as if they'd been sleeping rough for a couple of days. But they were polite, and the slightly shorter one gave her a smile that made her wish she was ten years younger.

One of her more curmudgeonly regulars who came in every morning to read the papers and compose rude letters to the editors shot them a pointed glare, but she just smiled pleasantly, and asked to see the accreditation. Satisfied that all was in order, she directed them to the study desks and the terminals, then gave Mr Bullen an expression best described as The Librarian Stare Of Doom, because nobody was going to make trouble for a veteran and his PTSD support service dog on _her_ watch.

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

"I'm not happy about the thing with the dog," Sam muttered, eyes on the monitor as he typed. "It's fraudulent. And do NOT get me started on the moral atrocity of impersonating a veteran. There's a term for that. Stolen valor. Well, that's the polite term..."

"Granted, it's not ideal," Dean agreed, "But under the circumstances, it was absolutely necessary. You can't just leave a dog in the car and walk away on a warm day, that sort of thing attracts attention. Law enforcement attention. And... I think it might be best if we don't attract attention until we figure out what's goin' on. Anyway, we're not usin' him to gain any sort of advantage, we just don't want to leave him alone. This is clearly something he's done before." Jimi the big-ass dog was obviously accustomed to his service dog vest and harness; carefully tucked in with it had been half a dozen different service dog accreditation cards, each a fake as high quality as the licences in their wallets. "Next time, I'll use a different accreditation. How do you feel about an Emergency Services PTSD service dog?"

"Frankly, not a whole lot better... damn it!" Sam scowled at the screen.

"What?"

"It keeps bouncing. I can't get onto the internal network from an unsecured public system – well, actually, I could, but Charlie would kill me..."

"Incur not the wrath of Her Supremacy The Great Queen Sys-Op," Dean intoned ominously.

"...So I'm trying to use his unsecured address, and it keeps bouncing," Sam humphed.

"Can't say I'm completely surprised," Dean shrugged, "Since the security upgrade on the intranet it's hard enough to send a message to the other end of the building – trying to get a message through from outside, well, your electrons will just be bangin' their heads against the direwall until they get headaches."

"The term is 'firewall', Dean."

"Nuh-uh. At our office, we got a direwall. As in, if you try to get around it, the rage of The Great Queen Sys-Op will rain down upon you, and the consequences will be dire – you will be spend the next six months on dial-up speed with 8-bit graphics."

Sam turned to his brother. "How do you know she'd do that?"

"Because she threatened to do it to me," Dean told him cheerfully, "If I tried to get onto Busty Asian Beauties again from my office."

Sam shot his brother a brief Bitchface #3™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often). "It would serve you right, you jerk... what? Damn!" He ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, there's a private address I can use, it's better than nothing... okay." He paused. "Okay, message away, finally. How are we doing with recharging?"

"Just about," Dean peered at the phones, "Enough to make 'em useable, anyway. Let's get out of here, and get on with pressing business."

"Yeah, look, I was wondering if this might not be a translocation, what if this is actually a movement in our timeline, and..."

"Not that!" Dean interrupted, "I mean breakfast!"

As if to make the point, his stomach rumbled again, this time loudly enough to draw disapproving glares from a couple of other library patrons.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam rolled his eyes and stood up, "Though how we're supposed to eat with no money..."

"That will not be a problem," stated Dean firmly as they left the library.

Sam gave his brother a level stare. "Dean, I hope you are not suggesting that we try to find a soup kitchen, those services are for people who are genuinely impoverished."

"Nope." Dean turned his most winning smile on his brother. "You, Sam are going to get breakfast for us."

"What? Dean, have you not been paying attention? Because I'm telling you, I do not have any money, cash, legal tender, working cards, whatever you want to call it!"

"You're not gonna buy breakfast, Sam," Dean was positively beaming. "You, baby bro, are gonna do the thing with the sandwich."

* * *

... because nothing could possibly go wrong with that...

Feed John Edgar the plot bunny tasty reviews, because Reviews are the Delicious Delayed Breakfast in the Morning Of Life!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Sam stopped dead, then hauled off and gave his brother a full power Bitchface #2™ (Dean Is A Simple Animal Governed By The Three Fs: Feeding, Fighting, and… The Other One). "What?"

"You heard me," Dean went on breezily, "You can just do the thing with the sandwich, and we can eat!"

"Dean..."

"The thing with the bacon and eggs would be even better."

"Dean..."

"The thing with the bacon cheeseburger would be even better than even better."

"Dean..."

"And the thing with the coffee, that's an absolute must..."

"Dean, I am not doing the thing with the sandwich!" Sam snapped.

Dean's face fell. "But... Sam, I'm hungry," he complained.

"So am I," Sam replied tersely. "But that doesn't mean I'm gonna do the thing with the sandwich."

"I'm really really hungry," Dean persisted.

"You usually are, if you haven't eaten sometime in the last thirty minutes," Sam agreed.

"What about Jimi the big-ass dog?" Dean tried the animal welfare tack. "He must be hungry too. I mean, bein' that big-ass, he's gotta need regular feeding."

"There was a bag of kibble in the trunk, and I know you saw it," Sam shot back snippily, "So don't try to drag the dog into this."

"Yeah, well, I bet he'd love some bacon," Dean muttered. "Sam, I can't concentrate on the job of figuring out what the hell is going on if I'm so hungry I can't think straight," he concluded, his expression that of a student who has just answered a tricky problem in class and is expecting a gold star.

"A lot of the time you don't seem to be able to think straight even on a full stomach," Sam remarked trenchantly. "So I'm not doing the thing with the sandwich."

"Sam..."

"No! Anyway, genius, what sandwich?"

Dean looked around. "That one," he pointed to a busy café that was doing a brisk trade; it also had a refrigerated cabinet visible through the window. "We'll go over there," he indicated a park across the street, "And you will do the thing with the sandwich, and we can eat."

"No! Dean, you know what sort of trouble I'll get into if I do an overt working in a public place without a proper risk assessment and prior authorisation."

"You can do it if it's an emergency," Dean supplied promptly.

"This is not an emergency!" Sam snapped.

"Yeah it is!" Dean replied indignantly.

"The prohibition on spellwork, conjuration, or any practise of the Craft in public without prior authorisation may only be overridden in an emergency situation in order to prevent or mitigate an occult assault, accident, illegal working or other event where there is a foreseeable and immediate threat to human life and welfare," Sam growled. "You being hungry does not constitute an emergency."

"Well, I won't tell if you won't," Dean shrugged.

"That's not the point!" Sam was practically spluttering in outrage. "Besides which, does it not occur to you that somebody might _see_ us? Does it not occur to you that somebody might notice if we're sitting on a park bench, then suddenly, focaccia?"

Dean looked at his brother in confusion. "Is that some sort of magic word?"

"No!"

"Well, it don't matter," Dean waved a hand dismissively, "Generally, people don't see what's goin' on around 'em, right under their noses. We do our job all the time, with nobody noticing what's goin' on right in front of 'em. Nobody would notice."

"Anyway, it would be stealing," Sam snapped. "Theft is theft, when you take something that doesn't belong to you, it doesn't matter how you do it."

"But we aint intending to steal!" wheedled Dean, "We just want to, kind of, you know, borrow some food."

Sam gave his brother an incredulous stare. "Borrow food? _Borrow_ food? How the hell do you _borrow_ food? No, wait, on second thought don't you dare try to answer that question..."

"Okay, well, Mr Morality, what do you suggest?" asked Dean in exasperation.

"Waiting for Bobby to get back to me," Sam told him.

"But that could take hours!" Dean pointed out. "We'll be ravenous by then! And you'll need to find a wifi spot!" Carefully keeping any hint of slyness off his face, he brought out the big guns. "Seriously, Sam, we're gonna need your brain runnin' the reactor at 110% to get this figured out. How long do you think you can operate without food, and without... coffee?"

The first crack in Sam's resolve appeared.

"Look, theft is the intent to deprive somebody permanently of their property, right?" Dean began, his tone reminiscent of a small child launching into a complicated but confident explanation of how the crayon actually got ground into the carpet by a herd of rampaging miniature time-travelling dinosaurs, "And we aint intending to deprive anybody _permanently_ , we just wanna, you know, delay payment a bit."

"Delay payment?"

"Yeah," Dean insisted, "We don't have any money right now, but if you do the thing with the sandwich, then when we figure out what's going on, we can come back, and, and, and we come back here again and eat, and leave a really big tip, or after hours we put the money under the door." He smiled winningly.

"That is a piece of shameless sophistry." The tiny undertone of doubt in Sam's tone was probably only detectable to Dean, or maybe Bobby, but it was there.

"I'm just tryin' to find a solution to a pressing problem," Dean said, "And I think this might be the least worst of what are, frankly, a very small number of shitty options." He let guarded vulnerability sneak onto his face. "I'm really hungry, Sam," he added in a low voice.

Sam let out a long huff. "Okay. Okay. If we even try this, you have to understand, it could go wrong. I don't have the book in front of me, I don't have the resources I'd usually go to for this, but there might be some things in the car..."

Dean's smile was heartrending. "I trust you, bro," he said firmly, "I got faith in you."

"Okay." Sam's expression was pure Daddy's Wittle Twooper. "Let's go get a look in that window."

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

A quick recon of the café, a trip back to the car to collect some items from the trunk, and the Winchesters along with Jimi the big-ass dog headed for the park and seated themselves on a bench.

"It's like we really are carrying our whole lives in that car," Sam remarked, "Including the tools of the trade."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, "I mean, we always tool up for a job, but having everything? Poor Baby, her mileage per gallon has never been spectacular, this is goin' to send it through the floor, and I'm tryin' not to _think_ about what it must be doing to her shocks..."

"In addition, could you try not to _talk_ about what it must be doing to her shocks?" suggested Sam just a tad more snidely than was probably really called for. "I gotta do this from memory, and I'll have to concentrate if it's to have a snowball's chance in hell of working."

The thought of food was enough to make Dean shut up. Sam took a look through the small pair of binoculars, then began his recitation.

Being Hunters, they were good at blending into the background while they worked: Dean sat looking relaxed, idly scratching the dog's ears, while Sam looked for all the world like some guy reading a dog-eared muscle car magazine, possibly having some difficulty with the bigger words, because anybody who actually bothered to watch carefully would see that his lips were moving.

"Any luck?" asked Dean, smiling back at Jimi.

"Shut up!" Sam hissed.

"So, how long will it take?"

"It takes as long as it takes, Dean! Longer if you keep interrupting!"

"Okay, okay, I just wondered, how will we know if it's working..."

"We'll KNOW it's WORKING because you'll get your fucking SANDWICH, jerk!" Sam shot his brother a Bitchface #9™ (I Know What I'm Doing, Jerk) and got on with his recitation. Dean subsided, and consulted his cell.

Several minutes passed, the prevailing state of unmitigated sandwichlessness... prevailing.

"Sam..."

"Shut up!"

"Look, if you can't get it workin', bro, it's okay..."

"Shut up!"

"Really, we'll think of something. We always do, right?"

"DEAN! SHUT! UP!"

"I think I might have another idea about how we can get some mo-"

There was an odd _zzzzwit_ noise, then something smacked him on the ear.

He let out a small yipping scream that might, if one was feeling uncharitable, have been described as unmanly as his hand flew to the side of his face. However, Dean was a Hunter, and the moment he thought he might be a target he performed an agile backwards somersault to finish up behind the park bench.

"Shit!" he yelped, "Someone's firin' at us! Sam, get..."

He paused, and glanced downward.

It was not blood on his hand.

It looked a lot more like egg yolk.

"What the...?"

He stood up.

Jimi the big-ass dog was happily chowing down on a mushy mess on the ground. To an expert eye like Dean's, it was apparent that the dog was enjoying the components of a burger. He enjoyed it so much it was all snuffled up in three bites. "Saaaaaaaam!"

Sam dropped the magazine. "Oh, for fuck's sake..."

"You did this!" Dean hissed angrily, wiping at his ear – it was coated with egg. "You threw a burger at me!"

"Well, you kept distracting me!" Sam snapped back. "I warned you, I needed to concentrate, and you wouldn't shut up, and..."

There was another _zzzzwit_ noise, and something whacked Dean in the sternum with an audible _splat_.

"DAFUQ?!"

"It's a piece of pie," Sam told him, "Because I know for a fact that you'd scream blue murder if you didn't get pie."

Dean stared in disbelief at the soggy clump that clung briefly to the front of his shirt before splatting to the ground, where it too was quickly gobbled up by the dog, tongue slurping and tail waving. "That aint pie! That is mush! That _was_ pie. Until you screwed up."

"Until you distracted me," Sam shot back, "Now will you just shut..."

 _zzzzwit_

Sam's hand shot out and closed on something that otherwise would've smacked into his face.

"What the hell is that?" demanded Dean.

Sam unwrapped the paper, and peered in. "Uh, oh, hey, chicken and avocado, I think, with some greens."

Dean glowered as his brother extracted the roll from the paper bag. "Okay, then, genius," he growled, "Why has yours arrived, nice and neat and intact, in a paper fucking _bag_ , while mine has arrived in piec- AAAAAAARGH!"

 _zzzzwit_

Something solid whacked him smartly on the other ear, and bounced away.

With an enthusiastic whuff, Jimi the big-ass dog sprang into action, chasing after the missile, and carefully returning it to Dean. He took it from the dog, stared at it, then turned to his brother.

"Oh, hey, good work, Jimi!" Sam enthused, taking the orange from Dean's unresisting hand, "Good boy!"

Jimi beamed at Sam, and dialled the Big Brown Eyes up a notch in an apparently shameless attempt to wheedle a piece of chicken.

Dean was not impressed. "You threw an orange at me!" he yapped.

"No I didn't," Sam retored, "I got an orange for myself, and your head got in the way."

"You did that on purpose!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yeah you did!"

"NO I did NOT!"

"You totally did!" Dean insisted, "You zapped an orange, for the sole purpose of hitting me in the head with it!"

Sam glared at his brother. "Dean, if I had meant to hit you with a piece of fruit, you'd have known it."

"How, Sam? How would it have been any different?"

"Because if I'd wanted to hit you in the head with fruit I'd have gone for the damned pineapple!" Sam snapped, "I warned you, this is not an exact science, there are a hundred ways it can go wrong!"

"Yeah, yeah," sighed Dean, gazing sadly at the front of his shirt where a small splodge of apple filling remained. "That pie looked so good. Jimi really enjoyed it."

"Look, now I think I've, uh, you could say I'm sighted in," Sam went on in a conciliatory tone, "So I'll try again, if you could just not interrupt this time." Shooting his brother a quick Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?), he went back to the page of scribbled notes he had hidden in the car magazine.

Dean stewed silently, until...

 _zzzzwit_

"Aha!" his hand shot out to catch the hurtling object like the most competent catcher snatching a strike ball from the air, and he gleefully opened the bag.

A moment later his smile was replaced by a scowl; he brandished it as if it was a weapon. "Sam what is this?"

Frowning, Sam took the bag, and peered into it. "Uh, looks like falafel."

"I can see that it's falafel," Dean muttered dangerously, "What I want to know is, why are you trying to feed it to me?"

"It was a pre-packaged roll," Sam replied, "Since mine translocated more successfully than your burger, I thought it made sense to..."

"It does not make sense, Sam," Dean interrupted, "It does not make sense, ever, to try to feed me stuff like this!"

"It's deep fried," Sam protested.

"Where's the meat?" demanded Dean, "Where's the chunk of animal protein? Where's the piece of PETA outrage? Where is the lump of dead animal, Sam?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, maybe we should just take what we can get, here."

"Yeah. And you can get me a burger." Dean waved a hand imperiously. "Or at the very least, an egg and bacon wrap."

"Dean, I can only try to move what is already there," Sam reasoned, "I can't place an order!"

"Well, pick something that's actual food," Dean picked up the binoculars. "And another piece of pie. Look, there's one already cut, at the register end of the counter."

"Right, right, fine," Sam sighed, and turned back to his recitation.

Over the next several minutes, Sam tried more translocations, with varying degrees of success. He was completely correct when he told his brother that there was no clearly identifiable systematic approach to such a working, it was as nebulous and unpredictable as so much of the Craft. But Dean was sure he had spotted a pattern.

"So," he looked down at the pile of food items on the bench between them, "Here, we have a falafel, a salad roll, a tofu burger, another orange, an apple, and some monstrosity that I don't even wanna think about, arriving pretty much intact..."

"I think it's a piece of zucchini and pumpkin slice," suggested Sam helpfully.

"...While down there," he indicated the crumb-strewn ground, where the disintegrating items that had bounced off him like bean-bag rounds off a demonstrator had landed, "We have, or _had_ , before the dog cleaned 'em up, a cheeseburger, an egg and bacon roll, what looked like a totally delicious roast beef sandwich, and two pieces of pie, which all arrived in high velocity pieces. That last one was cherry, from the look of it." He turned an expression of wounded betrayal to his brother. "Why, Sam?" he asked in a small hurt voice.

Sam tried to find some compassion for his brother. "I don't know, Dean," he replied, "I'm kinda amazed that I've managed to pull off these things. Maybe it's because they're the sort of things I'd eat, rather than..." he sighed. "Look, let's try to get some perspective here – we were penniless and foodless, and while we're still penniless, we now at least have some things to eat. We won't go hungry."

Dean's face was utterly woebegone as he picked up the falafel wrap. "You're right," he said, "We got perfectly edible food, and beggars can't be choosers. Even if they might get their man-card taken away for eating rabbit food."

"I can try coffee," Sam offered. "Coffee would help, right?"

Dean offered his brother a wan smile. "Coffee always helps," he said, biting gingerly into his disturbingly nutritionally sound late breakfast, "But, uh, how about, just in case, how about you try to get the coffee _here_ , and we go stand over _there_?"

It turned out that the suggested precaution was prudent; the barista was busy, so Sam was able to attempt translocation of the odd cup out of the hectic workload. A latte arrived with barely a bump, but after two double shots of black did not so much arrive as splash across the bench, Dean sighed, but told himself to man up, because drinking a frothy girly-man brew was better than no coffee at all.

* * *

Poor Dean: falafel for lunch and frothy coffee. Is there no end to the indignity I'm prepared to visit upon the man? (Actually, if it will get me reviews, no, no there is not.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"I said I was sorry," Sam repeated as his brother returned to the car.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean muttered with resignation as he wiped at his face with a paper towel; food might have improved his mood somewhat, but having to eat what he thought of as fodder – "This aint really food, Sam, it's what my food eats" – and then having to drink frothy coffee, topped off with a visit to a public convenience to try to clean up his face and his shirt had not improved matters. A small boy being taken to use the restroom by his father had declared, in the high-pitched and penetrating voice that small children use for such observations, that "Daddy, that man smells bad!"

He was trying to concentrate on the fact that his stomach was no longer rumbling. "I'm good. I'm awesome. I mean, there's probably places you can go, salons, where you pay a fortune to have eggs and pie smeared on your skin, and I got it for free, plus I got some frank and fearless feedback on my personal hygiene from a three-year-old, so who am I to complain?"

"Yeah, well, you do kind of, uh, stink a bit, bro," confirmed Sam. He then sniffed his own shirt. "Come to think of it, so do I. Yergh, I hate being dirty."

"Heard back from Bobby yet?" asked Dean.

"I'll need a connection before I can check," Sam replied, anxiety at his lack of connectivity exacerbated by potential compromise of personal cleanliness once more creeping into his voice, "But if we get closer to the street, there's a few places that might have a wifi hot spot. Anywhere serving food often does." He tapped at his cell. "I'm picking up a couple of places, but the reception is crap at this distance."

"Well, let's take a walk," shrugged Dean, "See what we can find." He looked down at his shirt. "Maybe I'll find a cleaner shirt, first."

Sam regarded his brother thoughtfully. "Yeah, you do look like you've been wearing that one for a couple of days," he remarked.

"Yeah, and you look like you just stepped off the catwalk somewhere," Dean humphed back, opening the trunk and beginning to rifle through the stuffed duffel containing a life's belongings that were recognisably his. After a moment, Sam joined in, opening the other bag.

It quickly became apparent that pretty much the entire contents of both bags would benefit from laundering.

"This is kind of gross," Sam wrinkled his nose as Dean chose a shirt that, in his opinion, didn't smell any worse than what he was wearing, and had the added benefit of not having the stain of a splodge of pie on it, "Why would you cart an entire duffel full of dirty laundry around?"

"If you were on the road, and you couldn't find a laundromat, maybe," Dean suggested, pulling his shirt over his head, then quickly shrugging into the other when he got a wolf whistle from a woman walking her dog. "Or, if you were like us, you found yourself completely broke. Even washin' clothes costs money, Sam."

"Yeah, well, if we're gonna be here for more than a few more hours, we'd better find a way." He kept tunnelling through 'his' bag. "Crap, it's all skeevy... oh, hey, this one looks clean. Well, cleaner."

Dean scowled. "Sam, I forbid you to wear that shirt."

"What? Why?" Sam pulled his own tee over his head and wiggled into the slightly cleaner garment. "At least it's clean. Well, cleanish."

"It's an abomination unto manhood, is what it is," protested Dean.

Sam gave his brother a _Bitchface_ #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean). I promise not to wear it to any live music shows, okay?" He quickly pulled the shirt closed and started to button it as he too received a wolf whistle.

"There, see? You have to lose that shirt."

"What? You got whistled at too!"

"Yeah, but I got whistled at by a woman, Sam."

"Jerk," Sam muttered as he shoved the other shirt back into the duffel. "This is just wrong – I would never, never, let my stuff get into this state, no matter how long we were on the road or how busy a job was."

"Well, I guess a little bit of dirt never killed anyone," Dean pointed out.

"Maybe, but... our job requires us to be unobtrusive," Sam complained. "It's hardly unobtrusive if small children are gonna yell about you smelling bad. It's not professional to turn up to question somebody about a paranormal incident while smelling bad." He gestured at the other duffel. "I mean, that's bad, even for you, and you are not a fan of laundry at the best of times."

"Sam, this aint exactly 'my' bag," Dean responded, "But... this is my stuff. And this is my car. My stuff in my car. My tool box, in exactly the same spot..." he suddenly brightened. "Hey, I totally forgot! My shifty fifty!"

"What?" Sam was bemused.

"My shifty fifty," Dean grinned, "I put a fifty dollar note in the bottom of the tool box, ages ago – I thought, you never know when you might need it – so maybe at least we get some gas in the tank..."

The small spark of hope fizzled quickly when it became apparent that there was no money in amongst the tools, but there was something else. "Okay, don't recognize that," commented Dean, straightening up and examining the small cluster of items on a wire ring.

Sam craned his neck to see. "What are those things?"

"Not sure," Dean mused, "They look like keys."

"Keys to what?"

"No idea."

"Keys to a door? A lock-up somewhere?"

"Don't look like door keys," Dean noted, "Or padlock keys. I think... I got a feeling I've seen these before, somewhere," Dean went on, almost as if talking to himself. "If only they unlocked a cash machine."

"Wouldn't do us any good anyway," Sam pointed out practically, "They're always under surveillance, and we'd be detected and caught pretty quickly. Even if we had our work IDs, we'd get arrested. And Bobby would find out. And we would know fear, and we would know pain, and we would beg for the cops to keep us in jail to keep us safe. Come on, let's find a wifi spot."

He fretted somewhat about using wifi at the place he'd taken their food items from, but Dean pointed out that it was provided free of charge anyway, and technically they had patronised the establishment, they just hadn't paid for their food just yet, so they found themselves another public bench. Sam was quickly in The Zone, tapping away at his laptop with a frown of concentration on his face.

Dean knew from experience that when his brother was communing with the gods of the internet, all he could do was wait, so he passed the time messing idly with his phone, and watching as Jimi the big-ass dog lounged comfortably, offering passers-by a cheerful doggy grin, tail wags, and the occasional whuff of greeting; he turned the Big Brown Eyes on anybody who even glanced in his direction.

"You're a very people person, aint ya?" noted Dean, offering a muted yet decidedly come-hither smile as Jimi charmed another attractive young lady into ruffling his ears whilst he lolled his tongue happily. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say, you're a babe magnet. Just like me, in that respect." He turned to his brother. "If this Jimi is a Hunting dog, he's not at all like any I've met. They're well-behaved, yeah, but they're, well, kinda standoffish. Like they don't wanna meet new people or make new friends. But Jimi here, he just likes everybody. And everybody likes him. He's workin' them puppy-dog eyes like a pro. Hell, he's better than you, Sam."

"Aloofness is just a trait of Hunting kennel bloodlines," Sam replied distractedly, "They're Hunters, of course they don't give away their trust easily. Shit."

"No word from The Big Cheese?" asked Dean.

Sam looked up, worry all over his face. "Dean, it's worse than that, it's much, much worse..."

Dean checked at the edge in his brother's voice; he hadn't heard his brother sound so upset since he'd taken the phone call telling them that their father had suffered a massive and fatal stroke. "Sam," he began carefully, "Whatever it is, just tell me, bro, and we'll figure it out. I promise, we'll figure it out, and fix it."

"Okay. Okay." Sam took a deep breath. "To start with, I cannot access any of my accounts. The bank sites all seem to be working just fine, I just... my details don't log me on. It's like I don't exist. Then, there's work. I've tried a couple of other ways to get to the FOOCER website, through the remote federal portals we can use. Nothing works."

"What?" Dean looked mystified. "But we filled in all that paperwork, sat through all those briefings, went to all those interviews to get the security clearance just so we could get in through the side door!"

"Exactly," Sam sounded grim. "But it doesn't work. That's what I'm saying. Nothing works."

"Let me try," suggested Dean, but Sam shook his head.

"I don't think it's an access problem, bro," he said, "Like I said, I think it's worse."

"Worse?" Dean scoffed, "We're stuck in Montana, fuck knows how, with no money, no gas, no food, no contact and no idea, and you think it's worse? How could it be worse?"

Sam visibly swallowed. "I can't get to the FOOCER network, but there are ways for other agencies to get in contact," he said, "So I tried those. But get this." He turned the screen so his brother could see it. "It's not that I don't have access, it's more that... the access isn't there."

"Huh?"

"It's not there!" Sam repeated. "The links, the pages, the logins, they just aren't there. And then there's this." He opened another window; it appeared to be a satellite map. "Recognise the co-ordinates?"

"Well, yeah," replied Dean, peering at the map reference in the corner, "But I thought that FOOCER offices were redacted from publicly accessible data..."

"They are," Sam confirmed, "But this isn't. Look."

Dean looked. "But, that's..." he was briefly lost for words. "What is that, a, a warehouse of some sort?"

"Currently occupied by a software developer and a furniture manufacturer," Sam informed him.

"That can't be right," Dean almost growled, "That can NOT be right, that's the address, that's the street, I recognise the damned street, even the damned speed humps are there..."

"So, what I think has happened," Sam went on, "Is that we haven't been translocated away from home and FOOCER." He took a deep breath, and let it out. "Because FOOCER is not there." He took a deep breath. "We're not out of state, Dean; we're out of our own reality. Somehow, we are in an alternative verse, where FOOCER does not exist, and there is no such thing as professional Hunters."

* * *

Well, better late than never – they were going to figure it out eventually. Once they had coffee. Send reviews, because Reviews Are The Clean Shirt In The Duffel Bag Of Life!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Dean was no stranger to being blindsided by unexpected information; he was a professional Hunter after all, and anyway he'd had plenty of it throughout his life just through existing as a human being:

\- "The thing is, tiger, Mommy's gonna have a baby. You're gonna be a big brother!"

\- "Oh, no, honey, Sammy's too little to eat pie, so don't put any in his bottle again, okay?"

\- "Santa Claus isn't real, it's just your parents. Like the Easter Bunny."

\- "So, the man and the lady, they do this thing where he pees at her, and then she gets pregnant."

\- "What? _What_? Where the hell has this come from? Can't you go and ask your mothe- uh, okay, come and sit here with your old man, now, you know how boys and girls look different, yeah, and Mommy and Daddy look different from each other, Daddy grows a beard, and Mommy has, er, you know, the grown-up word is, uh, it's 'breasts', you know, how she fed Sammy when he was just a little baby, well, boys and girls are different in other ways, too..."

\- "My parents are away for the weekend; hey, have you ever been skinny-dipping?"

\- "Oh – My – GOD – you didn't just make the cut, you made Captain of the Cheerleading Squad! That's like, totally amazing!"

\- "Uh, yeah, it's me, bro, could you, uh, look, don't tell Mom or Dad, okay, could you just, could you come and bail me out?"

\- "Were _beaver_? You're a _were_ beaver? There's such thing as a _werebeaver_? Whoa, Arjan, I thought your teeth were just, you know, because there weren't many orthodontists in Albania where you grew up."

Yep, as far as 'unexpected information' went, being informed that he and his brother had somehow wound up in an alternative reality might not overtake Where Babies Come From, but it was past There Are Such Things As Werebeavers But They Don't All Have Teeth Like That They're Just Arjan; it was about on par with Sam Tried Pot.

"But that's..." Dean sat silently for a few moments, stunned by the idea.

"Right now, it's the theory that best fits the available data," Sam stated grimly.

"But... how?" Dean wondered.

"I don't know," Sam told him. "But we'd better figure it out. Because whatever has caused it, we are, as of this moment, off the grid, out of the loop, completely broke, and on our own."

"Fuck," breathed Dean, "That's... fuck."

"Yeah," agreed Sam. "That is indeed 'fuck'."

"But... we're Hunters," Dean went on, "The stuff in the car, I've got my tattoo, so do you, we're tooled up for work, Sam, we're still Hunters..."

"Maybe – but we're not professionals," Sam noted. "Wherever we are, in this reality – we might be Hunters; but it's not a profession. It's not paid work. It's... I can't find anything. Except for some stuff on the wackier part of the internet. Unless..." he paused, looking uncomfortable, "Unless we _are_ the wackier part of the internet, like, if we're a couple of conspiracy theorist nuts who've dropped off the grid so the government can't read our brainwaves, or something – oh, God, we've got this arsenal in the trunk, what if we're a couple of nutjob anti-establishment weirdos, planning the next atrocity in a public place..."

"No," Dean said firmly, "Don't overthink this, Sam – we're not conspiracy nuts. Or, at least, _we_ are not conspiracy nuts, and we will not behave like conspiracy nuts. We're Hunters. We find a job, we do research, we confirm our target, we make absolutely sure that we know what we're dealing with, and we take down monsters that are hurting people. Right now, we may not be professionals, but it's what we do, and that's what we are, until evidence to the contrary comes to light. Saving people, Hunting things, the family profession." He looked thoughtful. "Do you remember Grandpa Samuel's stories, about his dad?" he said eventually, "About how Great-Grandpa Campbell Hunted, and started training him up? Before Hunters really got organised? Before anybody had even thought about FOOCER?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "It would be difficult not to," he observed, "Since he told the same stories over, and over, and over, every visit, every sleep-over, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, it was like listening to a broken record. He never shut up about it, 'You kids don't know how easy you have it these days, when my father Hunted, he had to do it all himself, living on the road, on his wits, with no back-up from anybody except his dog and his Hunt buddy, and that's how my training started, and I had to wear short pants and sleep in the snow and eat nothing but dirt and back in those days the vampires were twenty feet tall and the werewolves could fly and wendigos shot death rays out of their eyes', and God forbid anybody should ever call him on any of his bullshit..."

Dean sighed; from when he was a small boy, he had enjoyed spending time with his maternal grandfather – one of his favourite memories was sitting on Grandpa Samuel's knee, learning to pack salt rounds while listening to his stories. Sam had not been such a fan; as a small child, he had preferred to spend time with Papa Winchester, who indulged the boy's curiosity about his occult book collection from a very young age. Samuel Campbell had been a great believer in the philosophy that children should be seen and not heard, and above all, they should take instruction and direction from their parents. He had frowned at the liberal parenting style of his daughter; he had loved both his grandsons but had not coped well with the budding intellectual who had been named after him, especially when that budding intellectual had started quizzing him on his assertions while in elementary school. (It had made for some interesting family gatherings, such as the Thanksgiving dinner where, as Samuel was once more holding forth on how knowledge of Hunting had been passed down through his family, parents to children, eleven-year-old Sam had put down his fork and said "So, what you're telling us is, nobody in the Campbell family has learned anything new for about a hundred years...")

Dean broke into the tirade. "Yeah, well, what if, what if this place, where we are, is like that? What if Hunters never, you know, got organised? Got professional?"

Sam stared at him for a moment. "Uh, okay," he turned back to his laptop. "So, for now, let's run with the idea that Hunters exist, and a need for Hunters exists, but they are, uh, off the grid. Unofficial. So, how are they, how are _we_ , supposed to, well, do anything? Like eat? Find a place to sleep? Do laundry? Just, you know, live?"

There was a moment of silence. "Well," Dean began slowly, "We need to take an inventory of what we've got, and figure out our plan for immediate survival: we need shelter, food..."

"We need electricity," added Sam. "And wifi. Those are essential."

"Yeah, okay, so, first we take stock of our resources, and figure out those how to live things, so we have time to figure what's happened."

"Dean, we don't _have_ any resources!" Sam almost yelped, "We are one hundred per cent destitute!"

"Well, yeah, right now, yeah," Dean nodded as he spoke, "We don't have any financial resources, but we got my Baby, and we got all the stuff in her, and we got our brains, Sam, we got stuff we know, and, and, I think I might have a very small piece of good news." He held up the collection of key-like items he'd found earlier. "I think I know what these are. And I think they can help us."

He told his brother what he was thinking.

"No," Sam snapped, "Absolutely not."

"We gotta be practical here, Sam."

"I said, no! What if we get caught? What if we get arrested? How do we tell the cops 'Don't mind us and the imperial shit-ton of weaponry we have in the trunk of the car, we're not planning to start a civil war, we're from an alternative reality where we're actually Feds'? We won't just get locked up, we'll get certified as nuts and locked up..."

"We won't get caught. We'll leave town."

"But you said the gas tank is empty!"

Dean came perilously close to infringing on his brother's Bitchface™ trademark. "Okay, let me ask you this: how long do you think you can go without a shower? That bottle of shampoo is almost empty – how long do you think you can go without shampoo? How long do you think you can function without electricity, Sam? Without internet? Without coffee?"

Sam's resistance crumbled. "Okay. But I want to go on the record as not approving of this."

"Duly noted. Now shut up and find the nearest bank out of this town."

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

They waited in the car until the sky began to darken, marvelling again at how Jimi the big-ass dog managed to curl himself up in the shotgun foot well. Sam stretched out across the back seat, surprised at how comfortable he felt there – in fact, he dozed off, and was awakened by Dean slapping his leg.

"Hey, wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Dean offered him one of the leftover purloined items of food, "Dinner is served."

"Right." Sam yawned and stretched, and took the proffered roll. "I had no idea I could sleep in your car."

"Yeah, you slept all right, if the snorin' was anything to judge by."

"How does he do that?" Sam asked, gesturing to Jimi, who was getting on with the business of napping. "How does a dog that size fit himself in there?"

"Same way a ginormous emo vegiesaurus curls up to sleep on the back seat," shrugged Dean, biting into his own dinner with a small noise of disappointment. "Second order of business will be a proper breakfast."

"Dean, I'm not sure I can do this..."

"Sure you can – just think about the shampoo. Think about the internet. Think about the coffee."

They waited for darkness, then headed for the trunk of the car to change quickly into dark clothes.

"It won't make any difference; there's street lights."

"Will you cut it out with the negativity?"

"Well I'm sorry if I can't rally a bit more enthusiasm for criminal behaviour, okay?"

"Look, I don't like it either, but right now it's our only option. Don't think of it as stealing; if we're Hunters, but we don't get officially paid, by an official organisation, officially, then we're still providing a public service, and this is getting paid by the public, unofficially."

"That there is one hundred percent Grandpa Samuel talking."

"That is one hundred percent practicality talking. And if the stuff is in the car is any indication, this isn't the first time 'we' have had to do this. So stop whining, Francis." Pulling his own beanie on, he handed the small cluster of key-things to Sam. "I think it's this one, or this one." He lifted a piece of hosing and a small gas can from the trunk. "Get the job done then get your ass back here, Baby and I will be waitin' and ready to go."

"Fine." Scowling, Sam straightened his shoulders, then headed for the street with the long line of parking meters.

* * *

Making Sam go without shampoo, coffee and wifi, I feel so mean. Maybe he'll feel less conflicted about pool or poker. Once he reconnects with the creature comforts of life, I'm sure a bit of petty graft will no longer discombobulate him so.

Unfortunately, I can't bring Dean's son RJ into this story - RJ didn't arrive until after Jimi Jr had gone to the Garden of Companions to Wait, and Lemmy and Lars had Chosen Dean and Sam, which happened shortly after Ronnie had Connor in the back of the Impala (events described in _Brains, Brawn, Beauty, and Rumsfeld_ ). It's kind of a shame, because the look on Dean's face when he was presented with a kid would be just hilarious.

Anyway, let's see how these FOOCERverse!Winchesters cope with having to make their own way in a world that doesn't know they exist (technically, in canon, aren't Dean and Sam officially dead as far as the wider world is concerned?) - feed John Edgar the plot bunny tasty reviews, because Reviews Are The Fat Juicy Parking Meters On The Street Of Life!


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

As good as his word, Dean was waiting with the car running on purloined fuel when Sam returned, staggering slightly.

"Didn't I tell you to act casual?" Dean said, spluttering as he spoke.

"You try walking casually carrying this," Sam griped, dropping the bag of change over the back seat with a tinkling thud, "Coins weigh a damned ton!" He sniffed. "I can smell gas."

"Yeah, well," Dean burped sonorously, "Without a siphon pump, it's not an exact science."

Sam sniffed again. "Dude, did you... have you been _drinking_ the stuff?"

"Not on purpose!" Dean snapped. "Look, I'm outta practice, okay? I haven't had to swipe gas since, fuck, since we were kids, you remember how I got that old trail bike running, and we went after Grandpa Samuel's truck, and..."

"Ohhh, don't remind me," Sam groaned with a wince, "I don't think I could sit down for three days afterwards." He paused. "Totally worth it, though."

"Oh yeah. If I could've found somebody to swap me a tank of fuel for a spanking, I might've considered it. If it was a hot woman."

"Oh, God," Sam moaned, his face forming a Bitchface #3™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often), "I don't remember Grandpa Samuel telling stories about Hunters pimping themselves out to earn cash to live on..."

"Well, not everybody could do it," shrugged Dean, hiccupping gently, "Not everybody is as, uh, pimpable as me."

Sam turned to his brother. "Pimpable? Pimpable? Is that even a word? You describe yourself as 'pimpable'?"

"False modesty sucks, bro," Dean grinned. "Hey, you're totally pimpable too," he added generously. "In a wholesome kind of way."

"Gee, thanks, I think," muttered Sam, "But I'll stick with robbing parking meters."

"How much do you think you got?" Dean asked, easing the Impala out onto the road and heading out of town.

"How should I know?" Sam snapped back, "We'll be counting it for hours, that I do know."

"I mean, who knew there was so much change in parking meters?" Dean marvelled. "So, we find somewhere to park overnight, then tomorrow, we count it and bag it and head for a bank..."

"Next town we hit, we find somewhere to stay," Sam interrupted, "Somewhere under a roof, with beds, and a shower. Ohhhh, I need a shower..."

"We can't pay for a room with coins," Dean pointed out, "That's about as suspicious as it gets. Well, short of turning up at reception covered in gore and holding a knife dripping with blood. But still pretty damned suspicious."

Still scowling grumpily, Sam brandished a wad of notes. "We don't have to."

Dean stared briefly at the cash. "Since when do parking meters take notes?"

"Uh, they don't." Sam looked slightly sheepish. "I cut back through that parking lot where we found ourselves this morning, and, well, the ticket machine was right there, and I thought I'd just see if any of the keys fit the cash panel, and, um, one of 'em kinda did, and apparently there are still people who pay with actual notes, and..."

Dean grinned widely. "Way to go Sammy!" he enthused, "Okay, so we are, for one night at least, solvent."

"So, find me a wifi spot, and I'll find us somewhere to stay," Sam said. "Uh, actually, let's go more than one town away."

The Impala rumbled on through the night.

"So, do you think we know any other Hunters?" Sam wondered out loud.

"No idea," Dean replied.

"If I wasn't out of minutes, I guess I could call somebody," Sam frowned at his phone. "There's not many people in my contacts, but there are some numbers."

"Might not be a good idea," suggested Dean, a touch ominously.

"What? Why?" demanded Sam.

"Well, think about it," Dean went on, "You're a Hunter, right, and suddenly, out of the blue, you get a call from another Hunter, and that guy says, hey, do I know you, because I don't think I'm supposed to be in this reality, I have no idea what the hell has happened, have you ever heard about anything like this? I mean, if you got a call like that, what would you think?"

Sam pondered the question. "I'd wonder what the hell was going on, and I'd be at least mildly suspicious. No, screw that, I'd be as suspicious as hell."

"Exactly," Dean said, "And you know what suspicious Hunters can be like. You remember the Halloween party when we were kids and Mark thought it would be funny to mess around with those contact lenses, and make everybody think he was possessed?"

"I remember him getting his ass shot full of rock salt from all sides," Sam chortled, never having gotten along that well with that particular cousin.

"And you did the blessing on our supersoakers and we hit him with holy water?"

"Yeah. He looked like a frosted cookie by the time everyone let up. I thought Grandpa Samuel was gonna spank him to death. He's still an idiot. How the hell he hasn't ended up dead yet is anybody's guess. Did you hear about how he got his condiments mixed up? Tried to do a salt and burn, but grabbed a bag of sugar instead? Ended up making toffee? If it hadn't been the angry spirit of a diabetic he'd have been in real trouble..."

"The point is," Dean cut into Sam's unkind reminiscing, "The point _is_ , Hunters are by and large more paranoid and suspicious than the average JFK second shooter conspiracist. And if it's a desirable professional quality in FOOCER agents..."

"...It's probably a survival trait here," Sam agreed. "Okay, so no attempts at contact just yet, until we figure out what's going on. That'll be harder without access to the library, or the archives, so much stuff has been digitised now, how the hell we're supposed to find that sort of book when we don't even actually technically exist as far as the rest of the world is concerned..."

"First things first," Dean said firmly, eyes on the road, "Somewhere to sleep..."

"Somewhere to bathe," Sam corrected him.

"Yeah, okay, then we sleep on it. But right now..."

Having spotted a drive-through, Dean smiled, and eased the car off the road.

"Dean, what are you doing?"

"Getting some proper food is what I'm doing. Gimme some of that cash..."

"Dean, we ate only a couple of hours ago!"

"Grazed, Sam, we grazed on fodder. You want anything? Or you can just sit there and, you know, chew your cud, or something... Oh, hey, they do wings, you want wings?"

Jimi the big-ass dog, who had been sound asleep in the back seat, suddenly sprang to his feet and began to woof excitedly, tail wagging.

"I'd say that's a yes from Jimi."

Sam scowled as Dean ordered a large box of wings, and various other items that could most charitably be referred to as 'sometimes food', and they resumed their journey.

"Hey, you can't give cooked chicken bones to a dog!" he protested as Dean offered one to Jimi, who took it gently.

"He likes 'em," Dean commented, shoving one into his own mouth with much less refined manners than the dog, "He must eat 'em regularly."

"Fine," Sam scowled, but nonetheless snagged one for himself, "If we end up having to find an emergency veterinary hospital in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, you can hawk your ass to pay the bill...STOP! STOP!"

"What? What?" yelped Dean, hitting the brakes so the car came to a shuddering stop. "What's wrong?"

"There!" Sam pointed out the window. "Look! Dean, it's a sign!"

Dean leaned forward to see what his brother had spotted.

It was a sign. They could definitely agree that it was a sign.

To Sam, it was a signal, a portent, a message from the universe, an indication from the cosmos as to what they should do, what their course of action should be, how they should proceed.

To Dean, it was a sign. It was in a large glass window, and it read:

 **SOAP OPERA**

24 HOUR LAUNDROMAT

 _wifi available_

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

"For the record, I hate doing laundry," griped Dean, scuffing around in the take-out box for more fries.

"For the record, I know, and I don't care," Sam answered, in the tone of a member of a household of two who ends up doing more than half the laundry overall.

"Why am I sitting in a laundromat after dark, doing laundry?" Dean came perilously close to whining.

"Be _cause_ ," Sam rolled his eyes, "There's no point finding somewhere to wash, if you don't have clean clothes to put on afterwards." He sighed, apparently soothed by the sound of every item of clothing in 'his' duffel swooshing around in large washing machines with extra detergent added. "At least we've got plenty of change."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean sighed, tapping at his phone. "Okay, I found us somewhere to stay, next town over. That should be far enough. We finish here, we fill Baby's tank, then we bug out." He glanced out the window into the dark. "I don't like leavin' her by herself."

"Jimi seemed to be happy to stay there," Sam pointed out, "He looked very comfortable. That blanket in the back suggests he spends a lot of time there." He frowned at the machine in which the dog's blanket was now being washed. "If the amount of hair on it is anything to judge by. If I was an asshole looking to steal a car, I'd think twice before I tried to break into one with a big-ass dog in it. I bet he looks scary in the dark."

"So long as nobody sees his tail wagging," chuckled Dean.

He did another run for food, then they repacked their bags with clean clothes and headed back to the car.

They'd just stepped out of the laundromat when both of them stopped, bewildered.

"Uh, Dean, I can, uh..." Sam looked down at his feet. "Can you feel that?"

"I can... I'd say I can..." Dean seemed lost for words. "This is gonna sound nuts, but I'd say I can hear that through the ground..."

They paused a moment, experiencing the low-frequency rumble that was coming up through their boots, apparently bypassing all that complicated business with membranes and small bones in their ears to impart a wordless message.

 _Threat._

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

Theorists who postulate multiple realities, alternative realities and mutable parallel realities have many hypotheses and explanations for their ideas. Sometimes they write complicated equations that look like somebody ate the menu of a Greek restaurant and threw up on the whiteboard. Sometimes they speak a language that's even more convoluted than the CEO of a large corporation at the annual general meeting. But across realities, there are some things that remain constant. The speed of light. The mass of an electron. The force of gravity.

And Dean Winchester's invisible whiskers ever-alert for any threat to his car.

That rumbling warning set them twitching like a burglar being tasered by a particularly annoyed homeowner.

Heedless of the duffel he was carrying, Dean broke into a run.

* * *

Oh noes! Baby in peril! Run, Dean, run!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

The Impala was a classic, a masterpiece of engineering from an era and a philosophy gone by, a time when mechanics were less complicated; no computers, no keyless entry, no electronic ignition, just the brute power and simple glory of shiny duco and Detroit steel, a magnificent muscle monster with an eight-chambered heart of American iron.

Unfortunately, the efficiency of engineering, that elegant simplicity of design, sometimes made her a magnet to a certain class of scumbag.

Even before John had formally handed over the keys and given his elder son his car and his blessing on Dean's sixteenth birthday, those invisible whiskers had twitched when someone was getting closer to the car than was polite or legal; on a couple of occasions, father had even stood back and laughed as son beat seven kinds of holy hell out of some punk caught red-handed, with tool of choice in hand, preparing to steal what was never his. (On one particular occasion just before Dean turned sixteen, John had only stepped in to prevent his outraged son from shoving the would-be thief's screwdriver somewhere that would've necessitated a trip to the nearest Emergency room and possibly a consultation from the staff proctologist, or at least the head of the maintenance department with a pair of multi-grips.)

So when Dean set off at a run, Sam followed, knowing that if somebody was so much as leaning on the car, there would be nothing he could do to stop his brother, once the red mist had come down and Dean was in Mama-bear mode; his plan was to prevent Dean from doing more than giving the culprit a few educational bruises. "Dean," he managed between gasping breaths as they ran, "Dean, just don't kill the guy... we're supposed to be... avoiding attention, remember... OOF!"

He ran right into his big brother as Dean rounded the corner and skidded to a halt.

The young idiot, some wannabe tough guy, who probably said 'Yo' far too much, had the thin strip of metal in his hand and an expression of shock and awe – or possibly shock and AAAAAAARGH! – on his face at being caught in the act; that much they expected.

What they were not expecting was to see that he'd been bailed up by Jimi the big-ass dog.

Jimi the big-ass dog, who had been sleeping soundly on the back seat inside the locked vehicle.

Jimi the big-ass dog, who was now definitely outside the car, crouched menacingly in preparation to spring, snarling a terrifying low canine growl. Thousands of years ago, when coming from the back of a cave, such a noise would have signalled that you shouldn't bother to run because you'd only die tired; the Winchesters realised that it was the rumbling sound they could hear coming up from the pavement.

Jimi the big-ass dog, who looked, in the shadows, to be, somehow, a lot more big-ass than they thought he was.

The would-be thief found his wavering voice. "C-call the dog off," he squeaked, "Call the dog off, man, I d-didn't mean..."

"Yeah you did," snarled Dean, as angry as the dog, "You were gonna break into my car, asshole! You were gonna break into my goddamned car! You were gonna try to steal my Baby!"

The young thug swallowed a couple of times. "He... he came through the door," he quavered, "He... don't let him..."

"Ohhhh, I won't," Dean's smile was feral, "I aint gonna let him have the fun of tearin' you a new one, that's a pleasure I reserve for myself, you dick."

"Uh, Dean," Sam nudged his arm, "Maybe you should, uh, call off the dog."

"He can have what's left, when I'm done," Dean smiled beatifically, shrugging out of his jacket and flexing his fists a couple of times, "I'll just..."

"No, I, er, I really think you should..." Sam indicated Jimi.

"I _will_ , okay, just as soon as we've both taught this piece of shit a les-"

He glanced down at the dog, did a double-take, and stopped mid-sentence.

A dog bailing up an intruder is not unusual canine behaviour. Indeed, it is a trait displayed by many dogs left to guard houses, cars or other places they think of as the 'territory' of their Pack, their family.

But not all dogs appear to... _expand_ , and slaver at the threat with burning red eyes that glowed like fanned coals.

"Okaaaaaay," Dean managed, "Wasn't expecting that..."

As he spoke, a set of teeth like boning knives, teeth that would've put a Kodiak bear to shame, slid out of Jimi's upper and lower jaws, dripping with drool that hissed slightly where it hit the pavement.

"...Or that," added Dean in a bemused tone, as the car thief slid down the wall and let out a little keening noise, "Was not expecting that."

"Just call him off, Dean," repeated Sam in a pleasant even tone, "Before, uh, yeah, just... before."

"Uh, yeah," Dean fished the keys out of his pocket, opened the back door, and carefully arranged the laundered blanket on the seat, letting out a whistle as he did so. "Jimi," he called cheerfully, "Leave it, fella, you've scared him real good. Come on, back in the car – load up, dude."

Jimi immediately left off and jumped obediently into the car. He turned back to Dean, once more just a happy Rottweiler with a big doggy smile, tail waving gently, looking forward to a road trip.

Dean turned back to the man on the ground. "So, let that be a lesson to you," he intoned, "Don't ever try to steal a car again, or, or, you see that dog, he's actually a, er, a demon in a dog-suit, yeah, and if you ever try to steal a car again, he'll hunt you down wherever you are, 'cause he's got your scent now, and he'll eat your face, and he'll tear your balls off and play Fetch with them, and then he'll tear your soul right out of your body and drag you to Hell, and you'll burn for all eternity, with no face and no balls, and... oh, dude, have you wet yourself?"

"I think you'd better just go," suggested Sam.

Somehow, the terrified man found his feet.

"What the fuck just happened?" asked Sam as they watched him stumble away as quickly as he could.

"Some little bitch wanted to steal my car," Dean sniffed disdainfully.

"No, jerk, I mean with the dog!" Sam snapped.

"He was defending his territory," Dean shrugged. "Dogs do it all the time."

"I _mean_ ," Sam scowled, "What the _fuck_ just happened with the dog? Did you _see_ it? He grew! I swear, he looked bigger! And glowing eyes? Teeth like, like, butchers' knives? What the _hell_ was that? I mean, we know he can walk through the car door, we saw him do it, but the eyes? The teeth? What the actual fuck?"

"No idea," Dean admitted cheerfully, ruffling Jimi's ears; Jimi grinned happily and lapped up the attention. "But he's a good boy, aint ya, protectin' the car? Yes you are! Yes you are!"

"He's not an ordinary dog," stated Sam flatly. "He's a complete tart for petting, yeah, but he's not an ordinary dog."

"No, he sure aint," agreed Dean, still ear scritching. "He's gotta be a Hunter's dog. Good thing you use your superpowers for good, huh, fella?"

Jimi hummed happily, then dropped to the seat and rolled over, gazing up at them with large wistful eyes, in the universal canine appeal for belly rubs.

"How... how can you be so blasé about this?" demanded Sam. "What if... fuck, what if he actually _is_ a demon-dog or something?"

"He passed all the tests," Dean pointed out, providing the solicited belly rubs as Jimi squirmed contentedly. "And he's a friendly fella, you've seen that."

"Oh, yeah, he looked reeeeeeal friendly just then," Sam humphed, "He looked like he was gonna kill that guy, but hey, he'd do it in a friendly way."

"That guy was gonna try to steal my car," Dean growled, "Jimi is friendly to everybody, but obviously he doesn't like assholes. Maybe he's just got a nose for, like, evil shit."

"A nose for evil shit?" echoed Sam.

"Sure," Dean went on, "Dogs can, you know, sense things that people can't. Maybe that's what Jimi can do. He can smell out evil shit. It would be a useful talent, for a Hunter's dog."

"I wonder if it's a glamour somebody cast for him," Sam mused as they stowed their bags, then got underway again – as usual, having encountered a puzzle, he was worrying at it like a terrier after a rat, or a screaming teen chasing a boy band. "One of the charms on his collar, maybe, so when he does get angry, he looks like... that. But how does he get through a solid car door? That's some seriously high level practice of the Craft right there, why would you do it for a dog?"

"So he can get out and frighten would-be car thieves," Dean suggested.

"That's like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. No, it's more like using a gold-plated RPG to crack a walnut; resource-intensive and complete overkill. If someone did get into the car, while he was in it, surely they'd get out again really fast once he, uh, detonated..."

"Maybe we should just be grateful that he's so good at his job," Dean shrugged, smiling as he looked at the snoozing dog in the mirror, "Keepin' my Baby safe."

"A car alarm could do the job."

"Yeah, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun."

"So, where are we headed?"

"Place on the edge of town, in our budget range."

"Our budget range?"

"Yeah, we gotta make the cash we got last as long as we can, so we might have to drop a star or two for the time being."

"As long as there's hot water," Sam humphed, scratching at his head, "And beds."

A couple of minutes further down the road, Dean frowned, and sniffed.

"What the... what the hell is that?"

"What?" asked Sam.

"That smell!" Dean sniffed again. "What is that smell?"

"It's not just me," Sam shot back, "You're just as unwashed, bro, so it's at least as much your fault..."

"No, not that," Dean interrupted, "There's... oh my God..."

"What?" Sam paused, and sniffed.

A faint but definite floral scent came to his nose.

"You little bitch," Dean growled, "You did that on purpose."

"What? I didn't do anything!"

"Well it sure as hell wasn't me! What the fuck did you put in your laundry, huh?"

"Dean, I didn't..."

"You made such a song and dance about the fabric softener dispenser not working – what happened, you got it to spit out something, and decided to use it?"

"I didn't!"

"If I find you put that shit in my stuff, ohhhhh, baby brother I will make you sorry."

"Dean will you listen..."

"You know I hate that smell, Sam! You know I hate it!"

"Dean, I didn't put anything else in the laundry! This is not me!"

"Dabbed it behind your ears then, huh?"

"Dean, will you get it through your head – I have not done anything to make your car smell!"

"Really? Really?" Dean sniffed again, and screwed up his face. "Well in that case, how come my car stinks of lavender?"

"I don't KNOW!" Sam yelped. "Look, maybe it was an, uh, an air freshener or something, and, and, when you grabbed the blanket off the seat, it got dislodged, and now..."

"It's getting worse," Dean complained, flapping a hand in front of his face, "It's getting stronger."

Sam stared at his brother. "We are in an alternative reality," he said, "We have found ourselves in an alternative reality, with no contacts, no money, no backing, no anything, and you've decided to complain about a bit of deodoriser in the car?"

"I hate it," Dean muttered, "You know I hate it, I totally hate it, and if I have to tear this car apart to find the source..."

In the back seat, Jimi the dog twitched in his sleep, his tail wagging even as he slept. In the time-honoured tradition of dogs in the backs of cars, he rolled over, and farted audibly.

A fresh wave of lavender scent washed over the Winchesters.

Sam blinked a couple of times. "That's... Dean, it's coming from the dog."

" _Huh?"_

"It's... bro, the lavender smell, it's, it's coming from the dog." He stared at Jimi. "He's... he's farting... lavender."

Dean's eyes bugged. "That's not... what the _fuck_ is in that kibble?"

Sam sighed. "Look, maybe it's, it's, you know, like the walk-through-the-car-door, glowing-eyes, bear-teeth thing." He turned to look at Jimi; with a muffled woof, Jimi's back legs twitched, and he broke wind once more. "He's chasing rabbits in his sleep. And, uh, farting lavender."

"I don't like this universe, Sammy," Dean muttered, "We need to get out of this universe. This lavender-scented-dog-fart universe."

"We'll figure it out, Dean," Sam sighed, sitting back. "If the worst thing we have to deal with in this situation is a bit of free aromatherapy, we should be grateful." He stretched and yawned. "I'm ready to hit the hay – I'm sure everything will look better once we get a room for the night."

* * *

Ah, the lavender-scented Hellhound farting - I wonder if it still happens back in the FOOCERverse? It's probably one of those universal constants.

How will the FOOCER!Winchesters cope with the sort of accommodation standard that the canon!Winchesters usually patronise? Sam will not be happy, if he doesn't have enough of his preferred toiletries, no he will not...


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"You missed it," Sam noted as the Impala drove by a motel of a large chain that they often patronised when travelling for a job.

"No I didn't," Dean kept his eyes on the road, "We aint stayin' there, Sam, we gotta make that cash last as long as we can. For the immediate future, we'll just have to drop a star or two."

"As long as there's hot water and a bed," Sam sighed, watching the four-star establishment recede into the distance. "And a laundry."

"You just did laundry!"

"Yeah, but if we end up staying for a few days there will be more laundry." Sam sounded like he was going into lecture mode. "I know for a fact that Mom tried to explain to you, for many years, that it is usual custom in this part of the world to change your clothes once they are dirty, and to do so several times a week, especially for underwear..."

"And Dad taught me that you can get four wears out of a pair of shorts," Dean grinned infuriatingly.

"That's just gross."

"Well, if you do run out of clean shorts, there's no federal legal requirement for shorts, you know."

"I hate you."

A short time later, the Impala pulled into a gravel lot edged with weeds under a sign lit by an incomplete set of lights, one of which was flickering. Sam frowned. "Hey, you don't need to stop, if you need me to navigate while you drive I can..."

"I'm done navigating," Dean said, turning off the engine, "We're here."

"What?" Sam looked at the run-down exterior with dismay. "Here? But... Dean, this place is a dump!"

"It's a bit below what we're used to," Dean conceded, "But the rate is much more affordable. We gotta live within our means for now, bro."

Leaving Jimi in the car, they made their way to the reception desk, where a bored-looking woman handed over a key.

"I can park my Baby right outside the door," Dean noted as they hefted their bags from the trunk, "That right there is a good reason to stay here."

"Yeah," noted Sam sourly as he opened the door, "That's what a customer looks for, screw the amenities and the facilities, proximity to your own vehicle is what counts..." he paused and sniffed. "Oh, God, that's kinda rank."

"At least it aint lavender," Dean shrugged philosophically, dropping his bag at the end of the bed closest to the door.

Sam looked around at the faded décor, stained walls and worn carpet, wrinkling his nose. "Lavender would be an enormous improvement. It smells of cigarettes, stale booze and cheap sex," he declared disapprovingly.

"And how would you know what that combo smells like?" asked Dean solicitously. "Come on, Sam, you lived in a college dorm, that can't have been exactly a luxury experience."

"Well, no," Sam agreed, "But that's the point, I'm not in college now, I'm all grown up and working, so we don't have to stay in dives like this!"

"Well, for now we do," Dean told him, picking up the threadbare towel on his bed, "And it's better than the car, and it's better than a tent, and there's a bathroom." He paused. "Although you might want to be careful tryin' to dry yourself with one of these here pieces of sandpaper."

"I'm scared to look in the bathroom," muttered Sam, heading for the door and turning on the light, "I'll bet it's mouldy, and... AAAARGH!"

The shriek was followed by swearing and a fusillade of stomping.

"What?" Dean ran to his brother's side, looking around the small dingy bathroom, gun drawn. "What?"

"That!" Sam pointed indignantly to a blotchy smear on the floor. "A roach! There was a fucking roach in here!"

Dean pulled a face, but put a reassuring hand on Sam's shoulder. "Well, that one aint gonna play the piano again."

"There will be more," Sam said with a shudder, "There's no such thing as one roach, there will be more..."

"What, you afraid they're gonna watch you take a shower?" asked Dean.

"I'm gonna check the bed for bugs," Sam declared grimly, "If there is _any_ sign of bedbug activity, I will NOT stay here, Dean, I will NOT. What about the dog? Is he gonna stay in the car?"

"Well, this place does have a 'No Pets' policy," Dean pointed out.

"Ha! That's a joke, given the size of that roach."

At that moment, Jimi the big-ass dog made the decision by walking through the room's front door, dragging his blanket with him. He dropped it by Dean's bed, and looked up expectantly.

"Looks like he's in with us," Dean shrugged, shaking out the blanket and arranging it on the floor for Jimi to flop down with a contented humph. "Well, he's comfortable." He sat down on the bed to take off his boots, and the sagging mattress creaked noisily under him.

Sam searched through his bag in preparation to head for the bathroom. "Crap," he muttered, shaking the nearly-empty bottle of shampoo that Dean had identified earlier in the day. "This is practically empty. And I got nothing else!" He looked at his watch. "I think I saw a supermarket and a drugstore on the way here..."

"We don't have cash to burn on your fancy-ass bathroom stuff," Dean stated firmly.

"It's not fancy-ass!" protested Sam, "It's environmentally sound, and it doesn't make me itchy!"

"Well, for tonight, you can just use the stuff provided," Dean waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the bathroom, "Until we can get ourselves some more cash. We gotta live within our means while we're here in FOOCERless-land, Sammy."

Muttering mutinously, Sam grabbed up his own worn towel and headed for the bathroom. A moment later his head reappeared around the door. "There are no toiletries in here," he asserted. "There's what looks like repurposed industrial waste in dispensers. And no conditioner. And I don't want to think about where that alleged soap has come from..."

"Don't be so prissy," snorted Dean, "When did you turn into such a big girl? Did they teach you that at college, Freshman Girlness 101? Or was it an AP class at high school? No, wait, yeah, I remember, it happened on the day you were born..."

Scowling, Sam disappeared back into the bathroom and closed the door.

Dean dumped the bag of coins out on the rickety table and started to sort them. He looked at Jimi. "How did you do that thing with the eyes?" he smiled at the dog as he wondered out loud. "And the teeth? Maybe we should let you eat a car thief, just to see if they're real, or if they're just a glamour, like Sam thinks. They looked pretty convincing to me." He paused. "You're not actually some sort of demon-dog, are ya?" he mused. "Nobody actually _really_ believes that there's a bloodline of Hunting dogs who are direct descendants of an _actual_ Hellhound..."

Jimi humphed, and thumped the end of his tail a few times before rolling over, yawning contentedly, and farting again. Dean sighed, but smiled as another wave of lavender scent reached him – if nothing else, he thought, a dog farting lavender could not possibly be in any way demonic.

He'd made fair progress with the coins when Sam reappeared – his brother had stayed in there longer than usual, but was at least staying silent on the topic of the unsatisfactory nature of their accommodation. "You can get on with this," Dean instructed, getting up and picking up his own towel.

"Fine," Sam gave him a sunny smile. "Enjoy."

The small room was full of steam – he quickly discovered that there was no exhaust fan, and the small corroded grill installed high in the wall as a sop to ventilation was completely ineffective – but that was the least of his problems.

For a start, Sam was not exaggerating: the gloopy yuck masquerading as shampoo had quite possibly been collected from a drip tray at the nearest nuclear power plant, if the colour was anything to judge by, or possibly a cosmetics testing laboratory if the smell was an indicator, and the soap was a small rock-hard chunk of something that had apparently been carved from granite. But it became clear that there was a more immediate problem.

The hot water was running – well, for a given value of 'running' that was somewhat closer on the Showerometer to 'dribbling' – but it was decidedly tepid, and progressively getting cooler.

"Hey!" he yelled angrily, "The water's goin' cold!"

"All just a part of dropping a star or two," Sam called back cheerfully.

Gritting his teeth, Dean washed quickly in the rapidly cooling low pressure water stream, then dried himself as best he could with the towel that was a lot smaller and a lot thinner than what he was used to. He emerged looking slightly damp and not-so-slightly unhappy.

"You used up all the hot water, bitch," he growled. "You were in there so long you used up all the hot water!"

"Well the water pressure is so crap, it took me twice as long to rinse my hair out," Sam replied.

"It was so steamed up my clothes got damp, and I couldn't dry myself properly!"

"It's hardly my fault if the place doesn't have any ventilation!"

"Oh, crap," Dean sat down on his bed, once more sinking deeply into the noisy mattress. "Tomorrow, I call first on the shower."

"We could go find somewhere else," Sam suggested hopefully, "Somewhere with better showers. Somewhere with better towels. Somewhere with actual towels. Made of actual towelling, rather than sandpaper. Or at least, towels that you can't see through."

"We'll see," said Dean firmly. "We'll see how much money we've got, and after that... we'll see."

Dean found a free-to-air channel showing a rerun of 'Dr Sexy', then they decided to turn in.

"This linen," complained Sam as he pulled the covers back, "This linen has got to be at least fifty percent synthetic fibre."

"It's not the sheets, it's the pillow that feels like it's full of gravel," Dean noted, pounding at the offending item in an attempt to get comfortable. "Or maybe it's been stuffed with cakes of the same soap that's in the bathroom."

A series of boings and sproings issued from Sam's side of the room. "Every time I move, I sound like an elephant in a slinky factory!" he complained.

"Once you're asleep, you won't be able to hear it," Dean told him, discovering that his bed, also, made some sort of creaking _sproinnnnng_ every time he moved so much as a finger. "It's undercover, it's flat, it's somewhere to lie down and sleep. It's better than the car."

"I'm not so sure," replied Sam, "It was, uh, actually, it was kinda comfortable in the car. I know that sounds nuts, but..."

"You're right, it sounds nuts," Dean agreed, determined not to let his brother know that he'd been thinking the same thing, "But we can't afford to do anything that makes us look unusual, or attracts attention. We gotta blend in, and do, uh, normal stuff. And normally, if they travel for work, people find a room for the night. Anyway, you were so insistent that you had to wash, you wanted a bathroom."

"That's not a bathroom," Sam complained, "That's an insult to plumbing."

"It's what we've got, for now," Dean said, smiling in the dark as he continued, "But if you want to find somewhere else...we could always find you a fountain."

Sam could hear Dean smiling in the dark. And Dean could hear Sam's scowl. "Dean, no."

"Or an ornamental pond. Provided you ask the fish first."

"Dean..."

"Or one of those water walls, you know, you could lean up against that, and you'd get a pretty good sluicing down."

"Dean, I am not going to bathe in a public water feature."

"You do have form, bro."

"It hardly counts..."

"I mean, you're not always so prissy – you fell over, you got dirty, and you were totally practical about it, no whining about your precious shower wash, there was the fountain, so you just whipped off your clothes, and jumped in."

"Dean..."

"The pigeons didn't seem to mind too much."

"Dean..."

"The other people in the park certainly seemed to enjoy the show."

"Dean..."

"And that cop who was on the beat was very understanding about the whole thing."

"Dean..."

"So provided you leave your shorts on, and you really shouldn't use any of your precious low-fat high-fibre dolphin-safe shampoo or coal-free ozone-friendly whale-approved shower wash, it would be completely fine, I'm sure..."

"Dean, I was three years old! Knock it off!" There was a serious of _sproinnnnngs_ as Sam thumped his pillow a couple of times. "Shut up and go to sleep. Jerk."

Dean grinned to himself as he pulled the covers up, and wiggled until he was as comfortable as he was going to get. "Goodnight, bitch."

* * *

Oh Sam, I feel your pain - I lived as an impoverished slob out of necessity when I was a student, and now well into middle age I REFUSE to spend a night ANYWHERE that does not have A SOLID ROOF and ELECTRICITY and RUNNING WATER and TEA BAGS. And whoever invented the word 'glamping' needs to be taken out and shot.


	11. Chapter 11

I'm sorry to have been on hiatus like this, but I'm afraid there was an unfortunate reason: I have lost my muse.

My old doggo, an elderly German Shepherd named Kali who was part of the inspiration for all the doggos of the Jimiverse (except for the lavender farting bit), left her matter in April. Not entirely unexpected in a dog of that breed at 10+ years of age, but sudden and without warning. She would sit at my feet and humph whilst I wrote, or occasionally offer a helpful snore from her bed by the window. Her departure has left a hole in my life; it is the tragedy of our pets that they leave us. I can only assume with Kali that a heart that loved that hard and that constantly was bound to wear itself out sooner rather than later.

I could almost wish that I believed in a life-after-this so that I could tell myself that I will see her again, but I don't. Maybe it's for the best: the thought of her digging her whacking great craters under the Rainbow Bridge, or getting into a tug-of-war with some unsuspecting angel's robe in the Garden of Companions just doesn't bear thinking about. But life goes on, and things get better, and one day, when the situation is right, and the stars align, there will be another doggo who will make herself right at home on my carpet (or sofa. Or bed. Cheeky creatures).

But I hate leaving anything unfinished, and horrifying the Winchesters is one of my small amusements, when I can find the time to do it these days, so let's see if little John Edgar the plot bunny can come out of hibernation and get started again...

* * *

 **Chapter Eleven**

It wasn't a particularly comfortable night's sleep: the weather had turned cold, and in addition to the noisy and lumpy beds, the heater was apparently running off the same source of hot water as the shower, so it only caused a vague warming of the air for a distance of about six inches from the pipes – but to make up for the lack of heat production it made a series of groans, rumbles and hammering noises that would've been right at home in the studio of a band called 'Grinding Gears' that liked to classify their music as 'experimental industrial ambient'.

Sam sat up as the sun began to filter through the thin curtains, and was sure he could see his breath in the air in front of his face.

"Fuck, it's cold," he muttered, yawning, "Or there's an angry spirit about to manifest."

"If it's a spirit, at least any ectoplasm is likely to freeze up," replied Dean, throwing back the covers and quickly sorting through his bag for clothes.

"Honestly, if this dump was my final resting place on this mortal plane, I'd probably be pissed enough to hang around and haunt it," admitted Sam, pulling on his boots. "I'm betting nobody would clean the room thoroughly enough to remove every trace of me."

Dean agreed to spend some of their meagre cash reserve on breakfast, so they found a busy diner.

"Ohhhhh, food, real food," he moaned gratefully as he shoved a rasher of bacon into his mouth, "And real coffee."

"Wifi," sighed Sam, "There is actually more than one bar of wifi here. What are you doing?"

"Saving some for Jimi," replied Dean as he wrapped a napkin around a piece of bacon. "He earned it, protectin' my Baby last night."

"I'm gonna have a closer look at those charms on his collar," Sam mused, "That illusion was pretty damned convincing – something that authentic could be really tactically useful, I bet it would make a lot of the things we chase down hesitate."

"It sure convinced me," Dean confirmed. "And it sure as hell convinced the asshole who was tryin' to steal my car. If it wasn't for the lavender farting, I'd believe he was part Hellhound."

"The most recent occult veterinary science consensus is that it would be impossible for a mortal dog to breed with a Hellhound," Sam informed him, taking another swig from his coffee.

"How do you explain Chihuahuas, then?"

"Oh, mostly they're just possessed. It's not the same thing."

Having finished eating and then picking up some change bags, Sam steered them towards a supermarket. "I need shampoo, and conditioner," he said firmly, "And shower wash. And a new razor, and some shaving cream."

"What for?"

"Because, genius, I've run out, and that toxic waste made me itchy. And we both need to shave."

"Why?"

"So we look a bit less like destitute homeless people, for a start."

"Right now, Sam, we are destitute homeless people."

"What happened to not drawing any attention to ourselves, blending in? We look like we've been living in the car for a week!"

"Well, maybe in this reality, we have."

"Look, all I'm saying is, if we're going to walk into a bank, and change large amounts of coin into notes, it would probably be best if we looked, just, tidier."

"I am tidy! I'm wearing clean clothes and everything!"

"What I'm getting at is, it would be better if we could both look more like 'employee of small business clearing the change bucket', or 'ordinary law-abiding citizen emptying that big novelty money box shaped like a pig wearing a fruit hat where I've been dumping my change every week for the last few years to save for a vacation in Vegas'. Something less like 'shady guy who hit a bank of parking meters last night'."

"Hey, chicks dig stubble, bro."

"I can tell you that the bank teller who got me those change bags did not dig my stubble; she was very polite, totally professional, but she was looking at me."

"Was she hot?" Dean's eyebrows performed one of their astonishingly evocative and infuriatingly lewd dance routines.

"What? No!" Sam snapped, shooting his brother a Bitchface #3™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often). "I mean, I wasn't looking at her like that, she was a middle-aged lady..."

"Yeah, that's fair," Dean mused thoughtfully. "You can do better than a cougar, bro."

"Dean, shut up about... that!" Sam yapped irritably. "What I meant was, I could see her looking at me and, and, registering me, because my appearance is, sadly, unkempt." He glared at his brother. "We're going to have to work extra hard to blend in, not stand out, not be in any way memorable."

"That's always difficult for me," Dean grinned infuriatingly, "Seeing as I am, after all, the Living Sex God."

Sam sighed. "Well, we have to do whatever we can. You're the one who's pointed out, that's how Hunters used to have to operate, before they got organised, stay off the radar of The Man, The Law, the locals, everybody." He scratched at his chin with a grimace. "And what we have going on here is beyond stubble, Dean, we've gone beyond designer stubble and into scruffy. And I don't have any shaving kit in that bag, and I bet you don't either." He thought wistfully of his self-cleaning cordless electric shaver with platinum screen for sensitive skin. "I hate using a razor, I haven't used a razor for ages."

"Well, you'll just have to slum it for a bit longer," Dean pointed out.

The shopping expedition turned into a reminder as to why Sam was usually in charge of groceries, and had them delivered. It unfolded as a series of arguments in several aisles.

It started in men's toiletries.

"Sam, we cannot pay that much for a packet of disposable razors!"

"The cheap ones are false economy, they go blunt really quickly, and with this much facial hair we may only get one use out of a razor, at least to start with."

"And how would you know, you with your gold-plated personal facial whipper snipper?"

"It's not gold-plated, you jerk, the screen is platinum, it's non-allergenic!"

"You don't need a bottle that big."

"Yeah I do, because I know for a fact that you are forever using my stuff, even when I buy you your own and repeatedly ask you not to."

It continued into other bathroom products.

"It's already provided, Sam, we don't need it."

"Yeah we do."

"No we don't."

"Huh, says the guy who hasn't tried it yet. I'm telling you, the stuff in the bathroom is like sandpaper!"

"Worse than the towels?"

"Yeah, worse than the towels."

"Well, okay, but just get a two-roll pack".

And snacks.

"Huh, now who's filling the trolley with non-essentials?"

"Hey, if you can buy TP, I can buy jerky. And chips. And Doritos."

And manchester.

"If you can buy jerky and shit, you jerk, I can buy a towel."

And alcohol.

"If you can buy a towel, bitch, I can buy a flask."

"Can you at least wait until after lunch?" complained Sam when Dean opened the booze as soon as they got back to their room.

"Sun's over the yardarm somewhere," Dean shrugged.

"But not here," Sam looked at his watch, "The expression probably originated on sailing ship trade route traffic crossing the north Atlantic, in which case the sun would not get above the upper spars on the masts until about 1100."

Dean stared at his brother. "You read too much," he stated, "I blame Papa Winchester. I should've dragged you out to the garage to help me and Dad with the car, or to the shooting range with Mom, it's just not healthy to let kids wander around libraries unattended." He took a couple of their bags of shopping and headed for the bathroom. "I'm goin' first, so you don't use up all the hot water."

"Jerk," muttered Sam, making a start on counting out more change, "Leave a bit for me. And don't use my towel!"

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

Having boiled the scaled kettle to bring the hot water to a temperature more worthy of the adjective 'hot', the Winchesters did their best to tidy themselves up, then returned to two different banks to convert coins to notes.

"They charged me!" Dean was indignant, "They charged me money, because I don't have an account with them!"

"They all do that," Sam shrugged philosophically, "Banks are in the business of making money."

"Banks are assholes," griped Dean.

"I hope you weren't rude to the teller about it," said Sam.

Dean looked affronted. "Of course not!" he exclaimed in a hurt tone. "It aint the tellers' fault – they don't make the rules, they're just ordinary joes, tryin' to make a living. If you must know, we joked about it. 'Hey, next thing you know, they'll be charging to look at the clocks, or use the pens,' that sort of thing."

"Well, good," Sam commented. "Because you're totally right, it's not the employees' fault if the corporation acts like an asshole."

"Besides, she was hot. I asked her if she wanted to come for a drink with me tonight before I head off to Vegas, but she said no..."

"You have a one-track mind, don't you?"

"Two track, Sammy, two track – I think about eating a lot, too." Dean's stomach has apparently been listening in to the conversation, and chose that moment to rumble loudly. "Speakin' of which, we should go eat."

"I feel bad about translocating all that food from that place yesterday," Sam confided.

"Well, we can buy it with actual legal tender today," Dean consoled him, brandishing the wad of cash.

"I don't think this is a good strategy, even short term," Sam mused, "Rob parking meters, move across one town and change the coins, rob parking meters, move across town and change the coins, we do it again, somebody might notice a pattern, make a connection, start pressing enquiries."

"Well, we aint gonna do it again in a hurry," Dean reassured him.

"Well, we'll have to think of something," Sam shrugged, "We'll burn through that in a few days, even if we're careful."

"We will, Sammy, we will," Dean grinned sunnily,

Sam's eyes narrowed. "What?" he demanded suspiciously, "Dean, whatever you're planning..."

"Hey, have a little faith," Dean sniffed disdainfully, "I have a great idea for makin' our cash work for us. And we'll do it all completely legally. But it will be best done on a full stomach. So, let's go eat. You can have a whole lettuce to yourself, if you like."

"Jerk."

"If you got any better ideas, I'm happy to hear 'em."

Sam sighed. "Okay, what have you got in mind?"

"Well, nothing terribly complicated, but I'll need you to work with me."

"Doing what?"

"Well, you remember how, when we were kids, when we were stayin' with Grandma and Grandpa Campbell, we'd go outside to play, and then you'd scream and I'd drag you inside, and you'd be holding your arm and sobbing, and Grandma Deanna would clean you up and kiss your owie better while I helped myself to the cookie jar? It's kinda like that..."

 **...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **... ...** **oooooOOOOOooooo** **...**

The house the Winchester brothers shared had features for both of them: there was a cosy study that Sam used, there was a large garage for Dean's car and his motorcycle, and, not entirely unexpected in a house where two men were batching it, there was a well-appointed games room.

Including a pool table.

Grandpa Campbell had taught Dean to play as soon as he was tall enough to see over the rails; it turned out the kid was a natural, and was beating all comers at family gatherings by the time he was ten.

Little Sammy had wanted to learn too, at first because he wanted to do everything his big brother did, and later because he wanted to beat his smartass big brother.

The first time Dean was caught sneaking into a bar, not to drink but to hustle, his mother shrieked in horror and imposed the worst punishment she could think of: she took his car keys away for a fortnight. (Of course, it was a dramatically educational experience. Dean learned to be a lot sneakier after that.)

The brotherly matches continued into adult life, Dean playing because he could, and Sam playing to practice until they were pretty evenly matched, both of them playing because they enjoyed each other's company: a drink, a game of pool and some affectionate trash-talking were a regular evening activity at Casa Winchester. Just about the only person who could be relied upon to beat either of them was their boss, Bobby Singer, an unrepentant pool shark who saw it as part of his job to give the young'uns a dose of humbling reality every so often.

So it was not surprising that Dean suggested turning their talents to a bit of hustling...

"I don't believe it," Sam said afterwards as they made their way back to their crappy room, "I don't believe we pulled that off."

"But we did," Dean grinned as infuriatingly as ever, "And we are, as of now, officially solvent."

"Unofficially," Sam corrected him, "It's not exactly regular work."

"It aint illegal either," Dean shrugged. "Hustling aint theft; it's letting greedy people cheat 'emselves."

Sam glared at his brother. "That right there is a direct quote from Grandpa Samuel."

"He was right," Dean stated. "Grandpa Samuel said that his father taught him to hustle pool and play poker well, because that's how Hunters had to make money to live on before FOOCER got organised."

"It might be a good idea not to go back there again," Sam cautioned, "We don't want to draw attention, or annoy the locals."

Dean looked thoughtful. "Hey, maybe we _could_ go to Vegas, really make some cash – can you still do that counting thing playing Blackjack? We could clean up before we got found out..."

"No!" Sam yelped, "Dean, that was for a math project on statistics! Anyway, Vegas is about a thousand miles south of here!" He huffed in exasperation. "We have to concentrate on figuring out what happened, and how we get back to our... our own reality. Our own 'home'."

"Then we'll just find somewhere else tomorrow, make our money, and move on," Dean waved a hand dismissively. "Just like Hunters used to for day to day living costs."

"Can we start with upgrading to somewhere better for tonight?" asked Sam hopefully.

"Nope," replied Dean, "We already paid, and we might be solvent now but we don't have money to burn. You got your girly shower stuff, Sam, we'll save our money for figurin' out what happened to us. Who knows what we'll need? But we can get some proper food."

"Right," Sam gave his brother a low-wattage Bitchface #2™ (Dean Is A Simple Animal Governed By The Three Fs: Feeding, Fighting, and… The Other One). "Because accommodation is not important, but food is."

"Damn straight," Dean sighed happily. "It's about priorities, bro. Food is important. So is booze. And so is sex, natch. But I don't have to pay for that, what with being the Living Sex God."

"Of course," Sam noted sourly, "How could I forget?"

Dean ordered a steak at the diner they found. "So, maybe we should head back to South Dakota," he suggested in between stuffing fries into his face, "That's where we were, before we ended up... here."

"Start at our last known location before it all went weird," Sam nodded in agreement, "The logical place to start." He paused. "Our house might not even be ours," he added. "In fact, it's reasonable to assume that it's not."

"Only one way to find out," Dean shrugged, stabbing another fry with his fork with evident satisfaction. "We'll get Jimi to sniff around; I think he might have a nose for evil shit."

"A... what?"

"You know," Dean waved his fork eloquently. "A nose for evil shit. He was seriously hatin' on the dirtbag who wanted to steal my Baby. Bobby says that animals have good senses for this sort of thing. Look at the Wildhunt and Schwartzhund dogs. I mean, look at Bubbles."

"I'd rather not," Sam shuddered, "She creeps me out."

"Don't let Tara hear you say that, she'll be really offended. She loves Bubbles."

"That doesn't mean I have to."

"Bubbles has taken on vampires, and werewolves. She can send 'em running and screaming."

"I understand why they'd do that."

"It would be kind of handy to have a Hunting buddy who could have that effect."

"Well, for now, you have Jimi. This Jimi. Big-ass dog Rottweiler Jimi, if not our more decidedly sensibly-sized Beagle Jimi."

"Actually, last week I found out that Bubbles is havin' babies, by Henry, apparently, and I was wondering if maybe..."

"No!"

"It's not like it'd cost a fortune to feed..."

"No!"

"Henry has taken on demons, so the babies will have a hell of a pedigree..."

"Dean, dunking a tarantula in holy water and flinging it at a demon does not make it a great Hunter!"

"Works, though."

" _No!"_

"Spoilsport."

* * *

I'm kinda with Sam on that one; keeping arachnids as pets, I never have seen the attraction.

Please feed little John Edgar the plot bunny reviews, because Reviews Are The Holy Water-Soaked Tarantulas Flung At The People You Can't Stand In The Living Room Of Life!


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